Focusing of relativistic electron bunches at the wake-field excitation in plasma

Analytical and numerical investigations of the trajectories of probing beam electrons in a two dimensional wake-field, generated in a plasma by a dense bunch of relativistic electrons with Gaussian longitudinal and transverse distributions of density have been carried out. Based on the calculations of probing beam deviations, the diagnostic instruments are developed for the parameters of experiments conducted at NSC KIPT. The diagnostic instruments include an electron gun generating a 10 keV electron beam with a current of 10 /spl mu/A and 2 mm in diameter, which passes through the chamber of interaction and falls on the collector of 10 mm diameter. The collector (screen) is placed in front of the first plate of a microchannel amplifier which consists of three microchannel plates (MCP) with sizes between 20 and 30 mm. The 3 kV voltage was applied to each plate. The total amplification of MCP amplifier is 10/sup 4/ to 10/sup 5/ depending on the number of particles incident on the first plate. As a result of probing beam deviations due to the excited wake-field, the electrons fall on the first plate of the amplifier and are registered by its anode located behind the third plate. The calculated probing beam deviations and the amplification attained with the MCP amplifier permit one to detect and investigate the electrical wake-fields excited by a sequence of relativistic bunches ( number of particles in a bunch is 2/spl middot/10/sup 9/, energy is 14 MeV) in a plasma of 10/sup 11/-10/sup 13/ cm/sup -3/ density. The intensity of the fields registered by this technique is no less than 2 kV/cm.