Present-day and next-generation accelerators, particularly for applications in driving wakefield-based schemes, require longitudinal beam shaping and attendant longitudinal characterization for experimental optimization. Here we present a diagnostic method which reconstructs the longitudinal beam profile at the location of the wakefield-generating source. The methods described derive the longitudinal profile of a charged particle beam solely from measurement of the time-resolved centroid energy change due to wakefield effects. As such, they are insensitive to the beam losses in post-interaction transport often found in common diagnostics. The reconstruction technique is based on a deconvolution algorithm that is fully generalizable to any analytically or numerically calculable Green’s function for the wakefield excitation mechanism. This method is shown to yield precise features in the longitudinal current distribution reconstruction. We demonstrate the accuracy and efficacy of this technique using simulations and experimental examples, in both plasmas and dielectric structures, and compare them to experimentally measured longitudinal beam profiles. The limits of resolution and applicability to relevant scenarios are also examined.

• Received 7 May 2020
• Accepted 30 November 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.23.121303

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society