On collinear wake field acceleration

In the Voss-Weiland scheme of wake field acceleration a high current, ring-shaped driving bunch is used to accelerate a low current beam following along on axis. In such a structure, the transformer ratio, i.e. the ratio of the maximum voltage that can be gained by the on-axis beam and the voltage lost by the driving beam, can be large. In contrast, it has been observed that for an arrangement in which driving and driven bunches follow the same path, and where the current distribution of both bunches is gaussian, the transformer ratio is not normally greater than two. This paper explores some of the possibilities and limitations of a collinear acceleration scheme. In addition to its application to wake field acceleration in structures, this study is also of interest for the understanding of the plasma wake field accelerator