Related papers: Extremely intense laser-based electron acceleratio…
The extreme electric fields created in high-intensity laser-plasma interactions could generate energetic ions far more compactly than traditional accelerators. Despite this promise, laser-plasma accelerators have remained stagnant at…
The physics governing electron acceleration by a relativistically intense laser are not confined to the critical density surface, they also pervade the sub-critical plasma in front of the target. Here, particles can gain many times the…
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…
A long laser beam propagating through an underdense plasma produces a positively charged ion channel by expelling plasma electrons in the transverse direction. We consider the dynamics of a test electron in a resulting two-dimensional…
Longitudinal ion acceleration from high-intensity (I ~ 10^20 Wcm^-2) laser interactions with helium gas jet targets (n_e ~ 0.04 n_c) have been observed. The ion beam has a maximum energy for He^2+ of approximately 40 MeV and was directional…
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…
We measure the high intensity laser propagation throughout meter-scale, channel-guided LPAs by adjusting the length of the plasma channel on a shot-by-shot basis, showing high quality guiding of 500 TW laser pulses over 30 cm in a hydrogen…
The plasma-based acceleration is an encouraging technique to overcome the limits of the accelerating gradient in the conventional RF acceleration. A plasma accelerator is able to provide accelerating fields up to hundreds of $GeV/m$, paving…
Experiments were performed to study electron acceleration by intense sub-picosecond laser pulses propagating in sub-mm long plasmas of near critical electron density (NCD). Low density foam layers of 300-500 um thickness were used as…
The acceleration of ions in the interaction of high intensity laser pulses with overdense plasmas is investigated with particle-in-cell simulations. For circular polarization of the laser pulses, high-density ion bunches moving into the…
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…
Laser-accelerated electron beams have been created at a kHz repetition rate from the {\it reflection} of intense ($\sim10^{18}$ W/cm$^2$), $\sim$40 fs laser pulses focused on a continuous water-jet in an experiment at the Air Force Research…
An experiment for studying laser self-guiding has been carried out for the high power ultrashort pulse laser interaction with an underdense plasma slab. Formation of an extremely long plasma channel and its bending are observed when the…
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…
We consider the acceleration of electrons in vacuum by means of the circularly-polirized electromagnetic wave, propagating along a magnetic field. We show that the electron energy growth, when using ultra-short and ultra-intense laser…
A high repetition rate electron source was generated by tightly focusing kHz, few-mJ laser pulses into an underdense plasma. This high intensity laser-plasma interaction led to stable electron beams over several hours but with strikingly…
Thanks to the fabrication of large aperture phase optics, ultra-intense relativistic laser plasma interaction (RLPI) experiments with complex polarization states are becoming feasible. In this work, we perform a computational investigation…
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…
The interaction of high intensity laser radiation with mass-limited target exhibits significant enhancement of the ion acceleration when the target is surrounded by an underdense plasma corona, as seen in numerical simulations. The…
Relativistic laser pulses can accelerate electrons up to energies of several GeV during the interaction with gaseous targets through the direct laser acceleration (DLA) mechanism. While the electrons are accelerated to high energies, they…