Perspectives on the generation of electron beams from plasma-based accelerators and their near and long term applications

C. Joshi (1) , S. Corde (2) , W. Mori (1)

1 UCLA - University of California [Los Angeles]
2 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée

This article first gives the authors' perspectives on how the field of plasma-based acceleration (PBA) developed and how the current experiments, theory and simulations are motivated by long term applications of PBA to a future linear collider and an X-ray free electron laser. We then focus on some early applications that will likely emerge from PBA research such as electron beam radiotherapy, directional but incoherent X-ray beams for science and technology, near single cycle continuously tunable IR pulses for spectroscopy and non-perturbative QED enabled by PBA electron beams. In our opinion these near term applications could be developed within the next decade with a concerted effort by the community.

Domains: Plasma Physics [physics.plasm-ph]; Accelerator Physics [physics.acc-ph]

C. Joshi, S. Corde, W. Mori. Perspectives on the generation of electron beams from plasma-based accelerators and their near and long term applications. Physics of Plasmas, 2020, 27, pp.070602. ⟨10.1063/5.0004039⟩. ⟨hal-02905422⟩