Scaling Interferometry to the Multi-Petawatt Regime
Abstract
Pre-plasma conditions strongly influence laser-plasma interactions in the multi-petawatt (MPW) regime, increasing the need for reliable early-time plasma evolution diagnostics. Among available pre-plasma diagnostics, interferometry remains the most direct method for measuring the spatially resolved electron density of pre-formed plasmas. However, its implementation becomes increasingly challenging at MPW scale dueto steep density gradients, phase-recovery difficulties, strong electromagnetic pulses (EMP), debris accumulation, and high-repetition-rate operation. Compounding these technical challenges, many large-scale facilities lack permanent probe-line architecture and trained diagnostic support, reducing experimental reproducibility and consuming limited beamtime. Future MPW facilities should standardize probe-line architecture, adopt off frequency probing strategies, improve phase-recovery methods for non-symmetric plasmas, integrate emerging real-time analysis capabilities, and engineer diagnostic systems resilient to EMP and high-repetition-rate environments. These advances will enable the user community to reliably characterize pre-plasma formation and laser-plasma dynamics at next-generation MPW facilities.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.03029,
title = {Scaling Interferometry to the Multi-Petawatt Regime},
author = {Mara L. Klebonas and Hernan J. Quevedo and Calin I. Hojbota and Michael Spinks and Keenan Riordan and Ryan Nedbailo and Michael Downer and Hans G. Rinderknecht and Ou Z. Labun},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.03029},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
5 pages, 1 table, Multi-Petawatt Diagnostic Community Workshop Whitepaper