Related papers: Low emittance electron beam generation from a lase…
High-intensity X-ray sources are invaluable tools, enabling experiments at the forefront of our understanding of materials science, chemistry, biology, and physics. Laser-plasma electron accelerators are sources of high-intensity X-rays, as…
We present few-femtosecond shadowgraphic snapshots taken during the non-linear evolution of the plasma wave in a laser wakefield accelerator with transverse synchronized few-cycle probe pulses. These snapshots can be directly associated…
The resources needed for Particle in Cell simulations of Laser Wakefield Acceleration can be greatly reduced in many cases of interest using an envelope model. However, the inclusion of tunneling ionization in this time averaged treatment…
We propose a new approach to high-intensity laser-driven electron acceleration in a plasma. Here, we demonstrate that a plasma wave generated by a stimulated forward-scattering of an incident laser pulse can be in a longest acceleration…
Laser-electron beam collisions that aim to generate electron-positron pairs require laser intensities $I \gtrsim 10^{21} ~\textrm{W/cm}^2$, which can be obtained by focusing a 1-PW optical laser to a spot smaller than 10 $~\mu$m. Spatial…
We report a proposal to observe the two-photon Breit-Wheeler process in plasma driven by compact lasers. A high charge electron bunch can be generated from laser plasma wakefield acceleration when a tightly focused laser pulse transports in…
Positron acceleration in plasma wakefield faces significant challenges since the positron beam must be pre-generated and precisely coupled into the wakefield, and most critically, suffers from defocusing issues. Here we propose a scheme…
The interaction of ultra-intense laser pulses with an underdense plasma is used in laser-plasma acceleration to create compact sources of ultrashort pulses of relativistic electrons and X-rays. The accelerating structure is a plasma wave,…
It is found that nonlinear interaction of plasma wakefields driven by counterpropagating laser or particle beams can efficiently generate high-power electromagnetic radiation at the second harmonic of the plasma frequency. Using a simple…
We describe a simple scheme, truncated-channel injection, to inject electrons directly into the wakefield driven by a drive pulse guided by an all-optical plasma channel. We use this approach to generate dark-current-free 1.2 GeV, 4.5 %…
High energy particle accelerators have been crucial in providing a deeper understanding of fundamental particles and the forces that govern their interactions. In order to increase the energy or reduce the size of the accelerator, new…
We use the quasi-static particle-in-cell code QuickPIC to perform full-scale, one-to-one LWFA numerical experiments, with parameters that closely follow current experimental conditions. The propagation of state-of-the-art laser pulses in…
We show through experiments that a transition from laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) regime to a plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) regime can drive electrons up to energies close to the GeV level. Initially, the acceleration mechanism…
The production of high-quality electron bunches in Laser Wake Field Acceleration relies on the possibility to inject ultra-low emittance bunches in the plasma wave. In this paper we present a new bunch injection scheme in which electrons…
The phase velocity of the wakefield of a laser wakefield accelerator can, theoretically, be manipulated by shaping the longitudinal plasma density profile, thus controlling the parameters of the generated electron beam. We present an…
We present a novel laser based ion acceleration scheme, where a petawatt circularly polarized laser pulse is shot on an ultra-thin (nano-scale) double-layer target. Our scheme allows the production of high-quality light ion beams with both…
We present a simple diode laser-based photoionization scheme for generating electrons and ions with well-defined spatial and energetic (<2 eV) structures. This scheme can easily be implemented into ion or electron imaging spectrometers for…
Plasma accelerators can generate ultra high brightness electron beams which open the door to light sources with smaller physical footprint and properties un-achievable with conventional accelerator technology. In this paper we show that…
Intense, 100 fs laser pulses at 3.2 and 3.6 um are used to generate, by multi-photon ionization, broadband wave packets with up to 400 eV of kinetic energy and charge states up to Xe+6. The multiple ionization pathways are well described by…
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,…