Related papers: A New Scheme for High-Intensity Laser-Driven Elect…
Plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) is a novel acceleration technique with promising prospects for both particle colliders and light sources. However, PWFA research has so far been limited to a few large-scale accelerator facilities…
We show that when a solid plasma foil with a density gradient on the front surface is irradiated by an intense laser pulse at a grazing angle, around 80 degrees, a relativistic electron vortex is excited in the near-critical-density layer…
As one of the leading acceleration mechanisms in laser-driven underdense plasmas, direct laser acceleration (DLA) is capable of producing high-energy-density electron beams in a plasma channel for many applications. However, the mechanism…
Laser-triggered ionization injection is a promising way of generating controllable high-quality electrons in plasma-based acceleration. We show that ionization injection of electrons into a fully nonlinear plasma wave wake using a laser…
We study electron acceleration within a sub-critical plasma channel irradiated by an ultra-intense laser pulse ($a_0>100$ or $I>10^{22}~\mathrm{W/cm^2}$). In this regime, radiation reaction significantly alters the electron dynamics. This…
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…
Intense femtosecond laser pulses interacting with solids can drive electrons to relativistic energies, enabling miniaturized particle accelerators and bright extreme-ultraviolet light sources. In-situ space-time control of these electrons…
We demonstrate that laser reflection acts as a catalyst for superponderomotive electron production in the preplasma formed by relativistic multipicosecond lasers incident on solid density targets. In 1D particle-in-cell simulations, high…
In this paper, we investigate the effect of spectral pulse shaping of the laser driver on the performance of channel-guided, laser-plasma accelerators. The study was carried out with the assistance of Bayesian optimization using…
The interaction of an ultra-intense laser pulse with a near critical density target results in the formation of a plasma channel, a strong azimuthal magnetic field and moving vortices. An application of this is the generation of energetic…
We present methods and preliminary observations of two pulse Direct Laser Acceleration in a Laser-Driven Plasma Accelerator. This acceleration mechanism uses a second co-propagating laser pulse to overlap and further accelerate electrons in…
In an electron wakefield accelerator, an intense laser pulse or charged particle beam excites plasma waves. Under proper conditions, electrons from the background plasma are trapped in the plasma wave and accelerated to ultra-relativistic…
The paper reports the results of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of proton beam acceleration at the interactions of a 130 fs laser pulse of intensity from the range of 10^21-10^23 W/cm^2, predicted for the Extreme Light…
We undertake an investigation of particle acceleration in the context of non-linear electrodynamics. We deduce the maximum energy that an electron can gain in a non-linear density wave in a magnetised plasma, and we show that an electron…
In laser-solid interactions, electrons may be generated and subsequently accelerated to energies of the order-of-magnitude of the ponderomotive limit, with the underlying process dominated by direct laser acceleration. Breaking this limit,…
Accelerator-based light sources such as storage rings and free-electron lasers use relativistic electron beams to produce intense radiation over a wide spectral range for fundamental research in physics, chemistry, materials science,…
The interaction of two laser pulses in an underdense plasma has proven to be able to inject electrons in plasma waves, thus providing a stable and tunable source of electrons. Whereas previous works focused on the "beatwave" injection…
The acceleration of polarized electrons, positrons, protons and ions in strong laser and plasma fields is a very attractive option to obtain polarized beams in the multi-MeV range. Recently, there has been substantial progress in the…
We demonstrate, for the first time, that laser-accelerated protons can induce shock waves in materials. The ultra-short pulse width of laser-driven protons enables them to deposit energy instantaneously, leading to an intense thermodynamic…
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…