Solid-state Tube Wakefield Accelerator using Surface Waves in Crystals

Abstract

Solid-state or crystal acceleration has for long been regarded as an attractive frontier in advanced particle acceleration. However, experimental investigations of solid-state acceleration mechanisms which offer $\rm TVm^{-1}$ acceleration gradients have been hampered by several technological constraints. The primary constraint has been the unavailability of attosecond particle or photon sources suitable for excitation of collective modes in bulk crystals. Secondly, there are significant difficulties with direct high-intensity irradiation of bulk solids, such as beam instabilities due to crystal imperfections and collisions etc. In this work, we model an experimentally practicable solid-state acceleration mechanism using collective electron oscillations in crystals that sustain propagating surface waves. These surface waves are driven in the wake of a submicron long particle beam in tube shaped nanostructured crystals with tube wall densities, $n_{\rm tube}\sim10^{22-24}\rm cm^{-3}$. Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations carried out under experimental constraints demonstrate the possibility of accessing average acceleration gradients of several $\rm TVm^{-1}$ using the solid-state tube wakefield acceleration regime. Furthermore, our modeling demonstrates the possibility that as the surface oscillations and resultantly the surface wave transitions into a nonlinear or "crunch-in" regime under $n_{\rm beam}/n_{\rm tube} \gtrsim 0.05$, not only does the average gradient increase but strong transverse focusing fields extend down to the tube axis. This work thus demonstrates the near-term experimental realizability of Solid-State Tube Wakefield Accelerator (SOTWA). (truncated to comply with submission requirements)