Observations of underdense plasma lens focusing of relativistic electron beams

Focusing of a 15 MeV, 19 nC electron bunch by an underdense plasma lens operated just beyond the threshold of the underdense condition has been demonstrated in experiments at the Fermilab NICADD Photoinjector Laboratory (FNPL). The strong 1.9 cm focal-length plasma-lens focused both transverse directions simultaneously and reduced the minimum area of the beam spot by a factor of 23. Analysis of the beam-envelope evolution observed near the beam waist shows that the spherical aberrations of this underdense lens are lower than those of an overdense plasma lens, as predicted by theory. Correlations between the beam charge and the properties of the beam focus corroborate this conclusion.