Preparation for Electron-Seeding of Proton Bunch Self-Modulation in AWAKE

The next milestone of the Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE) at CERN will be to demonstrate that the self-modulation of a long proton bunch can be seeded by a short electron bunch preceding it. This seeding method will lead to phase-reproducible self-modulation of the entire proton bunch, as required for the future AWAKE program. In the Spring of 2021, before receiving proton beams from the CERN SPS, AWAKE plans to hold a dry run of the electron seeding experiments, to commission the system and to determine the parameter scans that will be used in experiments with protons. Electron bunches of 10-20 MeV with varying charge, radius, emittance and energy will be sent in 10 m of low-density plasma. The effects of beam-plasma interactions on the amplitude of the wakefields driven by the different bunches will be studied by observing the energy spectra at the end of the plasma. This paper presents preliminary experimental results from the first two days of measurements as well as the beginning of a simulation-based study of electron propagation in plasma.