Space charge compensation in laser particle accelerators

Laser particle acceleration (LPA) involves the acceleration of particle beams by electromagnetic waves with relatively short wavelength compared with conventional radio-frequency systems. These short length scales raise the question whether space charge effects may be a limiting factor in LPA performance. This is analyzed in two parts of an accelerator system, the acceleration sections and the drift region of the prebuncher. In the prebuncher, space charge can actually be converted to an advantage for minimizing the energy spread. In the accelerator sections, the laser fields can compensate for space charge forces, but the compensation becomes weaker for high beam energy. copyright 1999 American Institute of Physics