Related papers: Recent results at SPARC_LAB
New particle acceleration schemes open up exciting opportunities, potentially providing more compact or higher-energy accelerators. The AWAKE experiment at CERN is currently taking data to establish the method of proton-driven plasma…
Propagation distances of intense laser pulses and high-charge electron beams through the plasma are, respectively, limited by diffraction and self-deceleration. This imposes severe constraints on the performance of the two major advanced…
We present experimental results of vacuum laser acceleration (VLA) of electrons using radially polarized laser pulses interacting with a plasma mirror. Tightly focused radially polarized laser pulses have been proposed for electron…
Plasma-Based Acceleration (PBA) has been demonstrated using laser, electron, and proton drivers. However, significant challenges remain in achieving high efficiency, stable acceleration, and scalable energy gain. Heavy ion beam drivers,…
We describe a series of experiments done using a commercially available optical pumping apparatus that is currently being used in physics teaching labs at over one hundred universities. Our focus here is to provide an extensive and detailed…
We introduce a plasma wakefield acceleration scheme capable of boosting initially subrelativistic particles to relativistic velocities within millimeter-scale distances. A subluminal light pulse drives a wake whose velocity is continuously…
The experimental study of the plasma projectile acceleration in the laser-induced cavity pressure acceleration (LICPA) scheme is reported. In the experiment performed at the kilojoule PALS laser facility, the parameters of the projectile…
Experimental measurements using the OMEGA EP laser facility demonstrated direct laser acceleration (DLA) of electron beams to (505 $\pm$ 75) MeV with (140 $\pm$ 30)~nC of charge from a low-density plasma target using a 400 J, picosecond…
In this article, we concentrate on the basic physics of relativistic plasma wave accelerators. The generation of relativistic plasma waves by intense lasers or electron beams in low-density plasmas is important in the quest for producing…
Dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) use the nearfields created when a laser pulse impinges on a dielectric structure to accelerate charged particles. We provide an overview of the theory of operation of photon driven accelerators, from…
The development of effective focusing schemes for positron bunches in plasma accelerators remains a significant challenge, as nonlinear regimes fail to create stable focusing channels for positrons. This work presents a method for focusing…
Particle acceleration in plasma creates a possibility of exceptionally high accelerating gradients and appears as a very attractive option for future linear electron-positron and/or photon-photon colliders. These high accelerating gradients…
Laser-driven plasma accelerators can generate accelerating gradients three orders of magnitude larger than radio-frequency accelerators and have achieved beam energies above 1 GeV in centimetre long stages. However, the pulse repetition…
Plasma accelerators sustain extreme field gradients, and potentially enable future compact linear colliders. Although tremendous progress has been achieved in accelerating electron beams in a plasma accelerator, positron acceleration with…
Recent studies have demonstrated the possibility of accelerating electrons to MeV energies in ambient air using tightly focused laser configurations. In this article, we explore possible strategies to control and optimize the resulting…
The FLASHForward project at DESY is a pioneering plasma-wakefield acceleration experiment that aims to produce, in a few centimetres of ionised hydrogen, beams with energy of order GeV that are of quality sufficient to be used in a…
A Compact laser plasma accelerator (CLAPA) is being built in Peking University, which is based on RPA-PSA mechanism or other acceleration mechanisms. According to the beam parameters from preparatory experiments and theoretical simulations,…
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,…
Strong, symmetrically focusing plasma lenses are promising for accommodating the small beams associated with plasma-based accelerators and collider final foci. However, while focusing with active and passive plasma lenses has been…
Laser-plasma proton acceleration was investigated in the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA) regime using a novel gas-foil target. The target is designed for reaching higher laser intensity at the foil plane owing to relativistic…