Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Article number | 054801 |
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<mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 8/02/2019 |
<mark>Journal</mark> | Physical review letters |
Issue number | 5 |
Volume | 122 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Publication Status | Published |
<mark>Original language</mark> | English |
We measure the effects of transverse wakefields driven by a relativistic proton bunch in plasma with densities of 2.1 x 10(14) and 7.7 x 10(14) electrons/cm(3). We show that these wakefields periodically defocus the proton bunch itself, consistently with the development of the seeded self-modulation process. We show that the defocusing increases both along the bunch and along the plasma by using time resolved and time-integrated measurements of the proton bunch transverse distribution. We evaluate the transverse wakefield amplitudes and show that they exceed their seed value (<15 MV/m) and reach over 300 MV/m. All these results confirm the development of the seeded self-modulation process, a necessary condition for external injection of low energy and acceleration of electrons to multi-GeV energy levels.