Collective acceleration of protons by the plasma waves in a counterstreaming electron beam

A novel advanced accelerator is proposed. The counterstreaming electron beam accelerator relies on the same physical mechanism as that of the plasma accelerator but replaces the stationary plasma in the plasma accelerator by a magnetized relativistic electron beam, drifting antiparallel to the driving source and the driven particles, as the wave supporting medium. The plasma wave in a counterstreaming electron beam can be excited either by a density-ramped driving electron beam or by properly beating two laser beams. The fundamental advantages of the counterstreaming electron beam accelerator over the plasma accelerator are a longer and tunable plasma wavelength, a longer pump depletion length or a larger transformer ratio, and easier pulse shaping for the driving source and the driven beam. Thus the energy gain of the driven particles can be greatly enhanced whereas the trapping threshold can be dramatically reduced so as to admit the possibility for proton acceleration