Related papers: Self-guided wakefield experiments driven by petawa…
A laser pulse traveling through a plasma can excite large amplitude plasma waves that can be used to accelerate relativistic electron beams in a very short distance---a technique called laser wakefield acceleration. Many wakefield…
An ultra-short (about 30 fs) petawatt laser pulse focused with a wide focal spot (about 100 microns) in a rarefied plasma (electron density of order 10^{17} per cm^3) excites a nonlinear plasma wakefield which can accelerate injected…
A controllable injection scheme is key to producing high quality laser-driven electron beams and X-rays. Self-injection is the most straightforward scheme leading to high current and peak energies, but is susceptible to variations in laser…
We revisit the matching conditions for self-guided laser pulse propagation in plasma and refine their formulation to maximize the energy of electrons produced via laser wakefield acceleration. Bayesian optimization, combined with…
The wake field excitation in an unmagnetized plasma by a multi-petawatt, femtosecond, pancake-shaped laser pulse is described both analytically and numerically in the regime with ultrarelativistic electron jitter velocities, when the plasma…
We report on the first results of laser plasma wakefield acceleration driven by ultrashort mid-infrared laser pulses (\lambda= 3.9 \mu m, 100 fs, 0.25 TW), which enable near- and above-critical density interactions with moderate-density gas…
A new self-injection scheme is proposed for the laser wakefield accelerator in the nonlinear (cavity) regime using a pair of matched, copropagating laser pulses which yields a pC electron bunch. By tuning their relative delay and intensity,…
Laser wakefield acceleration offers the promise of a compact electron accelerator for generating a multi-GeV electron beam using the huge field gradient induced by an intense laser pulse, compared to conventional rf accelerators. However,…
The bubble structure generated by laser and plasma interactions changes in size depending on the local plasma density. The self injection electrons position with respect to wakefield can be controlled by tailoring the longitudinal plasma…
We use Bayesian optimization in combination with three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to determine the optimal laser and plasma parameters that, for a given laser pulse energy, maximize the cut-off energy of an electron beam…
Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) using high repetition rate mJ-class laser systems brings unique opportunities for a broad range of applications. In order to meet the conditions required for the electron acceleration with lasers…
Self-focusing and guiding of ultra-short (pulse duration: L<lambda_P: plasma wavelength), intense laser pulses in underdense plasma relevant to laser wakefield electron acceleration has been studied numerically. The analysis considers…
A new scheme for injection and acceleration of electrons in wakefield accelerators is suggested based on the co-action of a laser pulse and an electron beam. This synergy leads to stronger wakefield generation and higher energy gain in the…
Laser wakefield accelerators rely on the extremely high electric fields of nonlinear plasma waves to trap and accelerate electrons to relativistic energies over short distances. When driven strongly enough, plasma waves break, trapping a…
Self-guided femtosecond laser pulses propagating in low-pressure gas can generate plasma filaments, establishing a new framework for plasma wakefield acceleration. Unlike conventional schemes relying on mechanically confined or preformed…
The scaling laws for laser wakefield acceleration in the nonlinear, self-guided regime [Lu et al. Phys. Rev. Spec. Top. Accel. Beams 10, 061301 (2007)] are examined in detail using the quasi-3D version of the particle-in-cell code OSIRIS.…
Driving laser wakefield acceleration with extremely short, near single-cycle laser pulses is crucial to the realisation of an electron source that can operate at kHz-repetition rate while relying on modest laser energy. It is also…
Experimental results, supported by precise modelling, demonstrate optimisation of a plasma-based injector with intermediate laser pulse energy ($<1$ J), corresponding to a normalised vector potential $a_0 = 2.15$, using ionisation injection…
We propose to use tightly focused lasers to generate high quality electron beams in laser wakefield accelerators. In this scheme, the expansion of the laser beam after the focal position enlarges the size of wakefield bubble, which reduces…
Laser wakefield accelerator experiments have made enormous progress over the past $\sim 20$ years, but their promise to revolutionize high-energy particle sources is only beginning to be realized. To make the next step toward engineering…