Linear electron accelerator for energy 8–50 MeV with injection from an electron source based on cluster plasma systems

For many years, one of the key problems of modern accelerator physics has been an increase of the rate of the energy gain in RF linear electron accelerators. The physical limits of the accelerating field intensity for metallic accelerating structures have been practically reached; therefore, new acceleration schemes are being considered, primarily acceleration in plasma and wakefield acceleration. The second aim is the generation of ultrashort (100 fs and less) electron bunches, for which RF photoguns are traditionally used. In this case, for RF photoguns, a serious problem that limits the intensity of electrons in a bunch is the influence of the own space charge during emission and acceleration in the near-cathode region, where the beam is weakly relativistic and the influence of the space charge on its dynamics plays the determinative role. The possibility of using a plasma cathode source as an injector for RF accelerator will considered. In the future, this may make it possible to bypass the limitations inherent in RF photoguns (sufficient influence of the space charge on the beam dynamics in the near-cathode region) and acceleration in the laser-plasma channel (low electron capture coefficient in the acceleration mode, wide energy spectrum — 10 % or more at energies of tens and hundreds of megaelectrons). It is proposed to develop a combined accelerator in which a bunch generated in a laser-plasma channel is injected into a traditional metal structure. It is supposed that could be possible to generate a short (from 0.1 to 1.0 ps) electron bunches with an energy of several hundred kiloelectrons, which will make it possible to consider such source as an alternative to the photocathode. Next, the beam must be captured in the acceleration mode in a normally conducting section and accelerated to an energy of 50 MeV with the possibility of energy tuning. The features of such accelerator, the features of the electron bunch capturing in the acceleration mode, and the possible values of the energy spectrum in such a system will considered.