Development of a Capillary Discharge Plasma Source for PWFA Applications at FACET-II

Plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) offers a promising method to reach acceleration gradients up to 100 GeV/m. PWFA requires stable and uniform plasma sources. Our work develops a capillary discharge plasma source that can generate plasma density up to 10^17 cm^-3 with high reproducibility and provides an alternative to the laser-ionized lithium heat pipe oven plasma source currently used at FACET-II at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The discharge system will improve the stability and operational efficiency which will optimize beam-plasma interactions. We will measure plasma density with spectroscopic techniques and report results to show that it meets requirements for PWFA experiments at FACET-II.