Proton acceleration in plasma waves produced by backward Raman scattering

This paper proposes a new method for proton acceleration. A slow plasma wave produced by backward Raman scattering captures the injected protons. Density gradient of the plasma enables the wave-phase velocity to increase as the proton test beams are accelerated. Preliminary results of PIC simulations of the backward scattering and proton acceleration in a uniform plasma are presented.