Study of ultra-high gradient acceleration in carbon nanotube arrays

Solid-state based wakefield acceleration of charged particles was previously proposed to obtain extremely high gradients on the order of 1-10 TeV/m. In recent years the possibility of using either metallic or carbon nanotube structures is attracting new attention. The use of carbon nanotubes would allow us to accelerate and channel particles overcoming many of the limitations of using natural crystals, e.g. channeling aperture restrictions and thermal-mechanical robustness issues. In this paper, we propose a potential proof of concept experiment using carbon nanotube arrays, assuming the beam parameters and conditions of accelerator facilities already available, such as CLEAR at CERN and CLARA at Daresbury. The acceleration performance of carbon nanotube arrays is investigated by using a 2D Particle-In-Cell (PIC) model based on a multi-hollow plasma. Optimum experimental beam parameters and system layout are discussed.