Simulation of a 50GeV PWFA Stage

The plasma afterburner has been proposed as a possible advanced acceleration scheme for a future linear collider. In this concept, a high energy electron(or positron) drive beam from an existing linac such as the SLC will propagate in a plasma section of density about one order of magnitude lower than the peak beam density. The particle beam generates a strong plasma wave wakefield which has a phase velocity equal to the velocity of the beam and this wakefield can be used to accelerate part of the drive beam or a trailing beam. Several issues such as the efficient transfer of energy and the stable propagation of the particle beam in the plasma are critical to the afterburner concept. We investigate the nonlinear beam-plasma interactions in such scenario using a new 3D particle-in-cell code called QuickPIC. Preliminary simulation results for electron acceleration, beam-loading and hosing instability will be presented