135 research outputs found
Self-stabilizing positron acceleration in a plasma column
Plasma accelerators sustain extreme field gradients, and potentially enable
future compact linear colliders. Although tremendous progress has been achieved
in accelerating electron beams in a plasma accelerator, positron acceleration
with collider-relevant parameters is challenging. A recently proposed positron
acceleration scheme relying on the wake generated by an electron drive beam in
a plasma column has been shown to be able to accelerate positron witness beams
with low emittance and low energy spread. However, since this scheme relies on
cylindrical symmetry, it is possibly prone to transverse instabilities that
could lead, ultimately, to beam break-up. In this article, we show that the
witness beam itself is subject to various damping mechanisms and, therefore,
this positron acceleration scheme is inherently stable towards misalignment of
the drive and witness beams. This enables stable, high-quality plasma-based
positron acceleration
fMRI visualization of transient activations in the rat olfactory bulb using short odor stimulations
International audienceOdor-evoked activity in the olfactory bulb displays both spatial and temporal organization. The difficulty when assessing spatio-temporal dynamics of olfactory representation is to find a method that reconciles the appropriate resolution for both dimensions. Imaging methods based on optical recordings can reach high temporal and spatial resolution but are limited to the observation of the accessible dorsal surface. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) may be useful to overcome this limitation as it allows recording from the whole brain. In this study, we combined ultra fast imaging sequence and short stimulus duration to improve temporal resolution of odor-evoked BOLD responses. Short odor stimulations evoked high amplitude BOLD responses and patterns of activation were similar to those obtained in previous studies using longer stimulations. Moreover, short odor exposures prevented habituation processes. Analysis of the BOLD signal time course in the different areas of activation revealed that odorant response maps are not static entities but rather are temporally dynamic as reported by recent studies using optical imaging. These data demonstrated that fMRI is a non-invasive method which could represent a powerful tool to study not only the spatial dimension of odor representation but also the temporal dimension of information processing
Status Report on the Hydrodynamic Simulations of a Tapered Plasma Lens for Optical Matching at the ILC Source
The International Linear Collider is a planned electron-positron linear
collider with its positron source producing positrons by aiming undulator
radiation onto a rotating target. The resulting, highly divergent positron beam
requires immediate optical matching to improve the luminosity and therefore the
success of the intended collision experiments. Here, optical matching refers to
the process of capturing particles and making them available for downstream
beamline elements like accelerators. In the past, this has been done with
sophisticated coils, but more recently the usage of a current-carrying plasma,
a so-called plasma lens, has been proposed as an alternative. For the
International Linear Collider idealised particle tracking simulations have
already been done with the purpose of finding the optimal plasma lens design
with respect to the captured positron yield. The proposed design is
characterised by a linearly widened radius in beam direction. Now further
research and development of this design is required, including both experiments
with a prototype set-up as well as corresponding simulations modelling the
hydrodynamics of the current-carrying plasma and the resulting magnetic field.
The accuracy of the latter will benefit greatly from the former. In this work,
first preliminary hydrodynamic simulations instil confidence into further
endeavours.Comment: Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear
Colliders (LCWS 2023), 15-19 May 2023. C23-05-15.
Vacuum laser acceleration of relativistic electrons using plasma mirror injectors
Accelerating particles to relativistic energies over very short distances using lasers has been a long standing goal in physics. Among the various schemes proposed for electrons, vacuum laser acceleration has attracted considerable interest and has been extensively studied theoretically because of its appealing simplicity: electrons interact with an intense laser field in vacuum and can be continuously accelerated, provided they remain at a given phase of the field until they escape the laser beam. But demonstrating this effect experimentally has proved extremely challenging, as it imposes stringent requirements on the conditions of injection of electrons in the laser field. Here, we solve this long-standing experimental problem for the first time by using a plasma mirror to inject electrons in an ultraintense laser field, and obtain clear evidence of vacuum laser acceleration. With the advent of PetaWatt class lasers, this scheme could provide a competitive source of very high charge (nC) and ultrashort relativistic electron beams
Bayesian optimization of laser-plasma accelerators assisted by reduced physical models
Particle-in-cell simulations are among the most essential tools for the
modeling and optimization of laser-plasma accelerators, since they reproduce
the physics from first principles. However, the high computational cost
associated with them can severely limit the scope of parameter and design
optimization studies. Here, we show that a multitask Bayesian optimization
algorithm can be used to mitigate the need for such high-fidelity simulations
by incorporating information from inexpensive evaluations of reduced physical
models. In a proof-of-principle study, where a high-fidelity optimization with
FBPIC is assisted by reduced-model simulations with Wake-T, the algorithm
demonstrates an order-of-magnitude speedup. This opens a path for the
cost-effective optimization of laser-plasma accelerators in large parameter
spaces, an important step towards fulfilling the high beam quality requirements
of future applications
Emittance preservation in a plasma-wakefield accelerator
Radio-frequency particle accelerators are engines of discovery, powering high-energy physics and photon science, but are also large and expensive due to their limited accelerating fields. Plasma-wakefield accelerators (PWFAs) provide orders-of-magnitude stronger fields in the charge-density wave behind a particle bunch travelling in a plasma, promising particle accelerators of greatly reduced size and cost. However, PWFAs can easily degrade the beam quality of the bunches they accelerate. Emittance, which determines how tightly beams can be focused, is a critical beam quality in for instance colliders and free-electron lasers, but is particularly prone to degradation. We demonstrate, for the first time, emittance preservation in a high-gradient and high-efficiency PWFA while simultaneously preserving charge and energy spread. This establishes that PWFAs can accelerate without degradation—an essential step toward energy boosters in photon science and multistage facilities for compact high-energy particle colliders
Semantic Knowledge Influences Prewired Hedonic Responses to Odors
Background Odor hedonic perception relies on decoding the physicochemical properties of odorant molecules and can be influenced in humans by semantic knowledge. The effect of semantic knowledge on such prewired hedonic processing over the life span has remained unclear. Methodology/Principal Findings The present study measured hedonic response to odors in different age groups (children, teenagers, young adults, and seniors) and found that children and seniors, two age groups characterized by either low level of (children) or weak access to (seniors) odor semantic knowledge, processed odor hedonics more on the basis of their physicochemical properties. In contrast, in teenagers and young adults, who show better levels of semantic odor representation, the role of physicochemical properties was less marked. Conclusions/Significance These findings demonstrate for the first time that the biological determinants that make an odor pleasant or unpleasant are more powerful at either end of the life span
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