Self consistent hydrodynamic description of the plasma wake field excitation induced by a relativistic charged-particle beam in an unmagnetized plasma

Abstract

A self-consistent nonlinear hydrodynamic theory is presented of the propagation of a long and thin relativistic electron beam, for a typical plasma wake field acceleration configuration in an unmagnetized and overdense plasma. The random component of the trajectories of the beam particles as well as of their velocity spread is modelled by an anisotropic temperature, allowing the beam dynamics to be approximated as a 3-D adiabatic expansion/compression. {It is shown that even in the absence of the {nonlinear plasma wake force}, the localization of the beam in the transverse direction can be achieved owing to the} nonlinearity associated with the adiabatic compression/rarefaction and a coherent stationary state is constructed. Numerical calculations reveal the possibility of the beam focussing and defocussing, but the lifetime of the beam can be significantly extended by the appropriate adjustments, so that transverse oscillations are observed, {similar to those} predicted within the thermal wave and Vlasov kinetic models.