Related papers: Axiparabola: a new tool for high-intensity optics
This paper presents the first experimental realization of a scheme that allows for the tuning of the axial energy deposition velocity of a focal spot with relativistic intensity. By combining a tunable pulse-front curvature with the axial…
Quasi-Bessel beams produced by axiparabolas are increasingly used in high-intensity laser applications, yet their longitudinal profiles exhibit unwanted oscillations that limit their effectiveness. Here we identify the physical origin of…
Controlling the intensity distribution of laser pulses in the focal region is essential for optimizing optically generated plasma waveguides and enabling advanced plasma acceleration techniques, including dephasingless wakefield…
"Flying focus" techniques produce laser pulses with dynamic focal points that travels distances much greater than a Rayleigh length. The implementation of these techniques in laser-based applications requires the design of optical…
Focusing petawatt-level laser beams to a variety of spot sizes for different applications is expensive in cost, labor and space. In this paper, we propose a plasma lens to flexibly resize the laser beam by utilizing the laser self-focusing…
This work provides a brief review of the numerical methods for modelling the optical propagation of an ultrashort, intense laser pulse in plasmas and ionizable gases. These methods are implemented in an open-source simulation toolkit…
We demonstrate a tandem lens optical setup, comprising two diffractive optics, that focuses a high-power ultrafast laser with a shaped on-axis intensity profile, producing a meter-long Bessel focus. The intended use of the optical setup is…
We present the first experimental confirmation that a laser-wakefield accelerator produced by a flying focus pulse is able to maintain the coherent structures necessary to accelerate electrons to relativistic energies. Through a combination…
Flying-focus wakefields, which can propagate with a tunable velocity along the optical axis, are promising solutions to electron dephasing in laser-wakefield accelerators. This is accomplished by a combination of spatio-temporal couplings…
The use of structured light to control the phase velocity of the wake in laser-wakefield accelerators has generated significant interest for its ability to mitigate electron dephasing. Combining the diffraction-free properties of Bessel…
Active plasma lensing is a promising technology for compact focusing of particle beams that has seen a recent surge of interest. While these lenses can provide strong focusing gradients of order kT/m and focusing in both transverse planes,…
The advent of ultrahigh-power femtosecond lasers creates a need for optical components suitable to handle ultrahigh light intensities. Due to the unavoidable laser-induced ionization of matter, these components will have to be based on a…
Structured light pulses hold significant promise for their ability to overcome dephasing in laser-wakefield accelerators, that should facilitate applications in high-energy physics and XFEL. Numerical studies have shown that sculpting a…
Spatiotemporal control encompasses a variety of techniques for producing laser pulses with dynamic intensity peaks that move independently of the group velocity. This controlled motion of the intensity peak offers a new approach to…
Fundamental to many applications of laser pulses in science and technology is an extended interaction length with matter that significantly exceeds the distance over which the pulse would normally diffract and transversely spread. At low…
We discuss spectral distortions, time delays and refraction of light in an axion or axion-plasma background. This involves solving the full set of geodesic equations associated to the system of Hamiltonian optics, allowing us to…
We propose a twisted plasma accelerator capable of generating relativistic electron vortex beams with helical current profiles. The angular momentum of these vortex bunches is quantized, dominates their transverse motion, and results in…
New techniques for the optical generation of plasma waveguides -- optical fibres for ultra-intense light pulses -- have become vital to the advancement of multi-GeV laser wakefield acceleration. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication and…
In this work we examine refraction of light by computing full solutions to axion electrodynamics. We also allow for the possibility of an additional plasma component. We then specialise to wavelengths which are small compared to background…
To realise a planned high-luminosity and high-energy $e^+e^-$-collider, as the ILC, a large amount of positrons have to be produced and the accelerated particles have to be captured and matched according to the damping ring acceptances.…