Adiabatic plasma buncher

In this paper, we present a new scheme of injection into a plasma accelerator, aimed at producing a high-quality beam while relaxing the demands on the bunch length of the injected beam. The beam dynamics in the injector, consisting of a high-voltage pulsed photodiode, is analyzed and optimized to produce a /spl lambda//sub p//20 long electron bunch at 2.5 MeV. This bunch is injected into a plasma wave in which it compresses down to /spl lambda//sub p//100, while accelerating up to 250 MeV. This simultaneous bunching and acceleration of a high-quality beam requires a proper combination of injection energy and injection phase. Preliminary results from simulations are shown to assess the potentials of the scheme.