Self-consistent wakefield and space-charge simulations for electron injectors

In electron accelerators, the dynamics of the particle beam is affected by internal space-charge forces as well as by wakefields. The latter represent electromagnetic fields scattered by the walls of the surrounding accelerator cavities. In a typical beam dynamics simulation, particle trajectories are tracked assuming free-space propagation, whereas the wakefield contribution is either neglected or is considered separately in a post-processing step. We propose a self-consistent simulation model which allows to quantify the coupled effect of space-charge fields and the beam-cavity interaction induced by electromagnetic wakefields. The model is applied in beam dynamics simulations for the electron injector of the SwissFEL, for which a clear impact of wakefields on the beam properties is demonstrated.