Measurement of Magnetic-Field Structures in a Laser-Wakefield Accelerator
Abstract
Experimental measurements of magnetic fields generated in the cavity of a self-injecting laser-wakefield accelerator are presented. Faraday rotation is used to determine the existence of multi-megagauss fields, constrained to a transverse dimension comparable to the plasma wavelength and several plasma wavelengths longitudinally. The fields are generated rapidly and move with the driving laser. In our experiment, the appearance of the magnetic fields is correlated to the production of relativistic electrons, indicating that they are inherently tied to the growth and wavebreaking of the nonlinear plasma wave. This evolution is confirmed by numerical simulations, showing that these measurements provide insight into the wakefield evolution with high spatial and temporal resolution.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1007.3241,
title = {Measurement of Magnetic-Field Structures in a Laser-Wakefield Accelerator},
author = {M. C. Kaluza and H. -P. Schlenvoigt and S. P. D. Mangles and A. G. R. Thomas and A. E. Dangor and H. Schwoerer and W. B. Mori and Z. Najmudin and K. M. Krushelnick},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.3241},
year = {2015}
}