Modeling of emittance growth due to Coulomb collisions in plasma-based accelerators

Abstract

Coulomb collisions with background plasma are one source of emittance degradation in plasma accelerators. This paper shows that the emittance growth due to Coulomb collisions can be correctly captured in particle-in-cell simulations, with a proper Monte Carlo binary collision module. The theory of the emittance growth due to Coulomb collisions is extended from a monoenergetic matched beam to a mismatched beam with energy spread and is compared with simulation results.