Study of external electron beam injection into proton driven plasma wakefields for AWAKE Run2

We describe an external electron injection scheme for the AWAKE experiment. We use scattering in two foils, that are necessary as vacuum window and laser beam dump, to decrease the betatron function of the incoming electron beam for injection and matching into plasma wakefields driven by a self-modulated proton bunch. We show that, for a total aluminum foil thickness of ~ 280 μm, multiple Coulomb scattering increases the beam emittance by a factor of ~ 10 and decreases the betatron function by a factor of ~ 3. The plasma in the accelerator is created by a ionizing laser pulse, counter-propagating with respect to the electron beam. This allows for the electron bunch to enter the plasma through an “infinitely” sharp vapor-plasma boundary, away from the foils.