Preliminary Study for an RF photocathode based electron injector for awake project

Abstract

AWAKE project, a proton driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PDPWA) experiment is approved by CERN. The PDPWA scheme consists of a seeding laser, a drive beam to establish the accelerating wakefields within the plasma cell; and a witness beam to be accelerated. The drive beam protons will be provided by the CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). The plasma ionisation will be performed by a seeding laser and the drive beam protons to produce the accelerating wakefields. After establishing the wakefields, witness beam, namely, electron beam from a dedicated source should be injected into the plasma cell. The primary goal of this experiment is to demonstrate acceleration of a 5-15$\,$MeV single bunch electron beam up to 1$\,$GeV in a 10$\,$m of plasma. This paper explores the possibility of an RF photocathode as the electron source for this PDPWA scheme based on the existing PHIN photo-injector at CERN. The modifications to the existing design, preliminary beam dynamics simulations in order to provide the required electron beam are presented in this paper.