Speaker
Description
High-gradient and high-efficiency acceleration in plasma-based accelerators has been demonstrated, showing its potential as the building block for a future collider operating at the energy frontier of particle physics. However, generating and accelerating the required spin-polarized beams in such a collider using plasma-based accelerators has been a long-standing challenge. Here we show that the passage of a highly relativistic, high-current electron beam through a single-species (ytterbium) vapor excites a nonlinear plasma wake by primarily ionizing the two outer 6s electrons [1, 2]. Further photoionization of the resultant Yb2+ ions by a circularly polarized laser injects the 4f14 electrons into this wake generating a highly spin-polarized beam. Combining time-dependent Schrodinger equation simulations with particle-in-cell simulations, we show that a sub-femtosecond, high-current (4 kA) electron beam with up to 56% net spin polarization can be generated and accelerated to 15 GeV in just 41 cm. This relatively simple scheme solves the perplexing problem of producing spin-polarized relativistic electrons in plasma-based accelerators.
References:
[1] Z. Nie, et. al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 054801 (2021).
[2] Z. Nie, et. al., Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 033015 (2022).
Acknowledgments
DOE Award No. DESC0010064
