Plasma wakefield acceleration studies using the quasi-static code WAKE

Abstract

The quasi-static code WAKE [P. Mora and T. Antonsen, Phys. Plasmas {\bf 4}, 217(1997)] is upgraded to model the propagation of an ultra-relativistic charged particle beam through a warm background plasma in plasma wakefield acceleration. The upgraded code is benchmarked against the full particle-in-cell code OSIRIS [Hemker et al., Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams {\bf 3}, 061301(2000)] and the quasi-static code QuickPIC [Huang et al., J. Comp. Phys. {\bf 217}, 658 (2006)]. The effect of non-zero plasma temperature on the peak accelerating electric field is studied for a two bunch electron beam driver with parameters corresponding to the plasma wakefield acceleration experiments at FACET. It is shown that plasma temperature does not affect the energy gain and spread of the accelerated particles despite suppressing the peak accelerating electric field. The role of plasma temperature in improving the numerical convergence of the electric field with the grid resolution is discussed.