Related papers: Probing electron acceleration and X-ray emission i…
Laser-plasma accelerators outperform current radiofrequency technology in acceleration strength by orders of magnitude. Yet, enabling them to deliver competitive beam quality for demanding applications, particularly in terms of energy…
The rapid progress that plasma wakefield accelerators are experiencing is now posing the question as to whether they could be included in the design of the next generation of high-energy electron-positron colliders. However, the typical…
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…
The accelerating gradients in conventional linear accelerators are currently limited to 100 MV per meter. Plasma-based accelerators have the ability to sustain accelerating gradients which are several orders of magnitude greater than that…
Laser-wakefield acceleration is a promising technique for the next generation of ultra-compact, high-energy particle accelerators. However, for a meaningful use of laser-driven particle beams it is necessary that they present a high degree…
Relativistic positron beams are required for fundamental research in nonlinear strong field QED, plasma physics, and laboratory astrophysics. Positrons are difficult to create and manipulate due to their short lifetime, and their energy…
In the design of laser plasma electron injectors for multi-stage laser driven wakefield accelerators, the control of plasma density is a key element to stabilize the acceleration process. A cell with variable parameters is used to confine…
Laser accelerated protons can be a complimentary source for treatment of oncological diseases to the existing hadron therapy facilities. We demonstrate how the protons, accelerated from near-critical density plasmas by laser pulses having…
Laser-plasma accelerators present a promising alternative to conventional accelerators. To fully exploit the extreme amplitudes of the plasma fields and produce high-quality beams, precise control over electron injection into the…
Plasma-based positron acceleration is still an open question, as the most efficient regimes for electron acceleration (quasi-linear and blowout) are not directly applicable to positrons. Nevertheless, positron acceleration is a stepping…
The dynamic process of a laser or particle beam propagating from vacuum into underdense plasma has been investigated theoretically. Our theoretical model combines a Lagrangian fluid model with the classic quasistatic wakefield theory. It is…
We demonstrate laser-plasma acceleration of high charge electron beams to the ~10 MeV scale using ultrashort laser pulses with as little energy as 10 mJ. This result is made possible by an extremely dense and thin hydrogen gas jet. Total…
Recent progress in laser-driven plasma acceleration now enables the acceleration of electrons to several gigaelectronvolts. Taking advantage of these novel accelerators, ultra-short, compact and spatially coherent X-ray sources called…
The excitation of surface plasmons with ultra-intense ($I\sim 5\times 10^{19}$ W/cm$^2$), high contrast ($\sim 10^{12}$) laser pulses on periodically-modulated solid targets has been recently demonstrated to produce collimated bunches of…
We review recent PIC simulation results which show that double-sided irradiaton of a thin overdense plasma slab by ultra-intense laser pulses from both sides can lead to sustained comoving acceleration of surface electrons to energies much…
We briefly report on the recently proposed [G. Fiore, R. Fedele, U. de Angelis, Phys. Plasmas 21 (2014), 113105], [G. Fiore, S. De Nicola, arXiv:1509.04656] electron acceleration mechanism named "slingshot effect": under suitable conditions…
Betatron x-ray sources from laser-plasma accelerators combine compactness, high peak brightness, femtosecond pulse duration and broadband spectrum. However, when produced with Terawatt class lasers, their energy was so far restricted to a…
Intense lasers can accelerate electrons to very high energy over a short distance. Such compact accelerators have several potential applications including fast ignition, high energy physics, and radiography. Among the various schemes of…
We propose a setup for positron acceleration consisting of an electron driver and a laser pulse creating a two-fold plasma column structure. The resulting wakefield is capable of accelerating positron bunches over long distances even when…
Laser-plasma acceleration (LPA) is a compact technique to accelerate electron bunches to highly relativistic energies, making it a promising candidate to power radiation sources for industrial or medical applications. We report on the…