Adiabatic Focusing of a Long Proton Bunch in Plasma

Abstract

We show in experiments that a long, relativistic proton bunch is focused by the plasma adiabatic response. The free plasma electrons migrate so as to neutralize the space charge field of the bunch, and the bunch is therefore focused by the azimuthal magnetic field generated by its own current, that is not balanced by the radial electric field. Since the length of the bunch is much longer than the plasma electron wavelength, the bunch also undergoes the self-modulation instability. Thus, the amplitude of the wakefields grows along the bunch and along the plasma, and the defocusing effect of the self-modulation can become dominant over the adiabatic focusing effect. We show that, when seeding the self-modulation with a preceding electron bunch, the transition between the effect of the adiabatic response and that of the self-modulation depends on the amplitude of the seed wakefields.