An Ultra-High Gradient Cerenkov Wakefield

= 20 µm) at the SLAC FFTB has opened the way for very high gradient plasma wakefield acceleration experiments. We study here the use of these beams in a proposed Cerenkov wakefield experiment, where one may excite electromagnetic wakes in a simple dielectric tube with inner diameter of few100 microns that exceed the GV/m level. We discuss the scaling of the fields with design geometric design parameters, and choice of dielectric. We also examine measurable aspects of the experiment, such as the total coherent Cerenkov radiation energy one may collect, and the expected aspects of dielectric breakdown at high fields. With the recent theoretical and experimental interest in laser acceleration, the issue of using dielectrics to support large accelerating fields has gained prominence. Various analyses have indicated that GV/m accelerating fields should be possible in dielectric-based laser accelerators1, as long as illumination times are very short2. Dielectric accelerators may also be powered directly by charged particle beams, via wake-field excitation3,4. This mechanism has been studied in depth over the last several years, but with the maximum fields limited to 10’s of MeV/m by the lack of ultra-short driv