CHARACTERIZATION OF PLASMA ACCELERATORS WITH RF LINAC TERMINOLOGY

The physics of plasma acceleration is described by using RF linac term inology such as shunt impedance, filling time, transit time factor, et c. It is shown that some differences between conventional RF accelerat ors and plasma accelerators make it difficult to import the RF linac t erminology directly into the new field. For example, the shunt impedan ce is of limited use and the filling time is no use in wake-field acce lerators with single-drive beams or single-pump pulses. The beatwave a ccelerator, a driven oscillator system, has in a sense more similarity to RF linacs than wake-held accelerators. It was shown that plasma wa ve decay due to collisions and modulational instability seriously dete riorate the quality factor. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.