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abstract:
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Plasma density transition trapping is a recently proposed self-injection scheme for plasma wakefield
accelerators. This technique uses a sharp downward plasma density transition to trap and accelerate
background plasma electrons in a plasma wakefield. This paper examines the quality of electron beams
captured using this scheme in terms of emittance, energy spread, and brightness. Two-dimensional
particle-in-cell simulations show that these parameters can be optimized by manipulating the plasma
density profile.We also develop, and support with simulations, a set of scaling laws that predicts how the
brightness of transition trapping beams scales with the plasma density of the system. These scaling laws
indicate that transition trapping can produce beams with brightness 5 1014 A= mrad 2. A proof-ofprinciple transition trapping experiment is planned for the near future. The proposed experiment is
described in detail.
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