Related papers: Electron acceleration by laser plasma wedge intera…
Particle acceleration by means of non-linear plasma wave interactions is of great topical interest. Accordingly, in this paper we focus on the electron surfing process. Self-consistent kinetic simulations, using both relativistic Vlasov and…
Nonlinear, relativistic longitudinal waves with sub-luminal phase velocity $v_p$ are the basis of plasma-based electron accelerators. For such application, key properties of the wave are the maximum or ``wave breaking'' amplitude and the…
We show that under appropriate conditions the impact of a very short and intense laser pulse onto a plasma causes the expulsion of surface electrons with high energy in the direction opposite to the one of propagation of the pulse. This is…
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…
The laser-ion acceleration in the ultra-short and ultra-intense laser-matter interactions attracts more and more interest nowadays. Since electrons gain relativistic energy from laser pulse in a period of several femtoseconds and driven…
An ultra-short (about 30 fs) petawatt laser pulse focused with a wide focal spot (about 100 microns) in a rarefied plasma (electron density of order 10^{17} per cm^3) excites a nonlinear plasma wakefield which can accelerate injected…
We report on an experimental study on the interaction of a high-contrast 40 fs duration 2.5 TW laser pulse with an argon cluster target. A high-charge, homogeneous, large divergence electron beam with moderate kinetic energy (~2 MeV) is…
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…
Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation results of sustained acceleration of electron-positron (e+e-) plasmas by comoving electromagnetic (EM) pulses are presented. When a thin slab of overdense e+e- plasma is irradiated with linear-polarized…
Large scale laser facilities are needed to advance the energy frontier in high energy physics and accelerator physics. Laser plasma accelerators are core to advanced accelerator concepts aimed at reaching TeV electron electron colliders. In…
Experimental results, supported by precise modelling, demonstrate optimisation of a plasma-based injector with intermediate laser pulse energy ($<1$ J), corresponding to a normalised vector potential $a_0 = 2.15$, using ionisation injection…
We explore a regime of laser-driven plasma acceleration of electrons where the radial envelope of the laser-pulse incident at the plasma entrance is strongly mismatched to the nonlinear plasma electron response excited by it. This regime…
Proton acceleration by using a 620-TW, 18-J laser pulse of peak intensity of $5\times 10^{21}$ W/cm$^{2}$ irradiating a disk target is examined using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. It is shown that protons are accelerated…
We report on new findings in a laser driven enhanced electron beam generation in the multi MeV energy range at moderate relativistic laser intensities and their applications. In our experiment, an intense sub-picosecond laser pulse…
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…
Research activities on laser plasma accelerators are paved by many significant breakthroughs. This review article provides an opportunity to show the incredible evolution of this field of research which has, in record time, allowed…
Laser-solid interaction can lead to the acceleration of protons to tens of MeV. Here, we show that a strong enhancement of this acceleration can be achieved by splitting the laser pulse to two parts of equal energy and opposite incidence…
Using 1D and 2D PIC simulations, we describe and model the backward ejection of electron bunches when a laser pulse reflects off an overdense plasma with a sharp density gradient on its front side. The dependence on the laser intensity and…
The Bubble regime of electron acceleration in ultra-relativistic laser plasma is considered. It has been shown that the bubble can produce ultra-short dense bunches of electrons with quasi-monoenergetic energy spectra. The first experiment…
The substantial angular divergence of electron beams produced by direct laser acceleration is often considered as an inherent negative feature of the mechanism. The divergence however arises primarily because the standard approach relies on…