What makes the system useful is the possibility of introducing waves of very high charge separation that propagate through the plasma similar to the traveling-wave concept in the conventional accelerator. The accelerator thereby phase-locks a particle bunch on a wave and this loaded space-charge wave accelerates them to higher velocities while retaining the bunch properties. Currently, plasma wakes are excited by appropriately shaped laser pulses or electron bunches. Plasma electrons are driven out and away from the center of wake by the ponderomotive force or the electrostatic fields from the exciting fields (electron or laser). Plasma ions are too massive to move significantly and are assumed to be stationary at the time-scales of plasma electron response to the exciting fields. As the exciting fields pass through the plasma, the plasma electrons experience a massive attractive force back to the center of the wake by the positive plasma ions chamber, bubble or column that have remained positioned there, as they were originally in the unexcited plasma. This forms a full wake of an extremely high longitudinal (accelerating) and transverse (focusing) electric field. The positive charge from ions in the charge-separation region then creates a huge gradient between the back of the wake, where there are many electrons, and the middle of the wake, where there are mostly ions. Any electrons in between these two areas will be accelerated (in self-injection mechanism). In the external bunch injection schemes the electrons are strategically injected to arrive at the evacuated region during maximum excursion or expulsion of the plasma electrons.