SRA: A New Ion Accelerator Scheme

The space-charge resonance accelerator (SRA) consists of a relativistic electron beam propagating through a dielectric loaded drift tube. In a range of physical parameters, the phase velocity of a self-growing space-charge wave increases slowly from zero to a large beam velocity as it propagates into the downstream region, thereby trapping and accelerating ions by its electric field. The self-growing mechanism of the space-charge wave is a typical Cherenkov radiation.