The 9th International Conference on Matter and Radiation at Extremes (ICMRE2026) ( ICMRE2026)

Plasma-based sources of spin-polarized particle beams have recently attracted growing interest [1], with potential applications range from deep-inelastic scattering proving the nucleon structure to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model, including axion-like particles. While a first proof-of-principle demonstration on the acceleration of nuclear-polarized helium-3 has been reported [2], no such experiments for polarized electrons exist at the moment. A primary obstacle is restrictive targetry for pre-polarized hydrogen halide targets [3]. In this talk, we present a scheme that circumvents the target limitations by employing the pinching of the electron driver. While this effect usually is to be mitigated in wakefield acceleration, our particle-in-cell simulations indicate that it can be used to produce highly polarized witness beams.

[1] L. Reichwein et al., Rep. Prog. Phys. 88, 117001 (2025)
[2] C. Zheng et al., arXiv: 2310.04184v2 (2024)
[3] D. Sofikitis et al., Phys. Rev. A 111, 053119 (2025)
 

spin,wakefield acceleration,particle in cell