External injection into a laser-driven plasma accelerator with sub-femtosecond timing jitter

Abstract

The use of external injection in plasma acceleration is attractive due to the high control over the electron beam parameters, which can be tailored to meet the plasma requirements and therefore preserve its quality during acceleration. However, using this technique requires an extremely fine synchronization between the driver and witness beams. In this paper, we present a new scheme for external injection in a laser-driven plasma accelerator that would allow, for the first time, sub-femtosecond timing jitter between laser pulse and electron beam.