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Terahertz radiation is a non-ionising source of radiation falling within the frequency band of 0.1 -10 THz, with applications in medicine, imaging, security, and wireless communications [1]. Unfortunately, the optical and electronic devices conventionally used to generate other radiation bands struggle to output terahertz frequencies. Increasing interest in the beam breakup instability, which utilises the extremely high accelerating gradients of plasma wakefields for compact, tunable electron beam modulation, has led to recent proposals of plasma-based sources of terahertz radiation [2-5]. Numerical simulation is integral to developing plasma-based technologies, however, simulating these systems typically requires computationally heavy particle-in-cell codes, which become prohibitively expensive for sweeping parameter scans, design studies, and machine learning techniques. Wake-T is a lightweight alternative to conventional particle-in-cell codes, able to be run in just minutes on a standard GPU. In this work, we investigate the beam breakup instability as it applies to the generation of terahertz radiation, assessing Wake-T as a tool for conducting sweeping parameter scans and in the preliminary investigations of designing a plasma-driven THz source for the Australian synchrotron. [1] A. Leitenstorfer et al., “The 2023 terahertz science and technology roadmap,” J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys., vol. 56, no. 22, p. 223001, Jun. 2023, doi: 10.1088/1361-6463/acbe4c. [2] H. Zhang, I. V. Konoplev, G. Doucas, and J. Smith, “Concept of a tunable source of coherent THz radiation driven by a plasma modulated electron beam,” Physics of Plasmas, vol. 25, no. 4, p. 043111, Apr. 2018, doi: 10.1063/1.5017551. [3] S. Yang, Q. Zhou, C. Tang, S. Chen, and Y. Xia, “Terahertz Cherenkov radiation induced by a self-modulated electron beam in plasma wakefield,” AIP Advances, vol. 9, no. 2, p. 025025, Feb. 2019, doi: 10.1063/1.5047253. [4] H. Feng et al., “Generation of Tunable 10-mJ-Level Terahertz Pulses through Nonlinear Plasma Wakefield Modulation,” Phys. Rev. Applied, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 044032, Apr. 2021, doi: 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.15.044032. [5] H. Feng, L. Yan, Y. Wu, and W. Huang, “Near-ideal energy modulator for tunable THz pulse generation using sectioned hollow channel plasma system,” Physics of Plasmas, vol. 28, no. 10, p. 103101, Oct. 2021, doi: 10.1063/5.0062371.
