Related papers: Modeling betatron radiation using particle-in-cell…
A theory that describes how to load negative charge into a nonlinear, three-dimensional plasma wakefield is presented. In this regime, a laser or an electron beam blows out the plasma electrons and creates a nearly spherical ion channel,…
An improved description for nonlinear plasma wakefields with phase velocities near the speed of light is presented and compared against fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations. These wakefields are excited by intense particle beams or…
A simulation package employing a Particle in Cell (PIC) method is developed to study the high current beam transport and the dynamics of plasmas. This package includes subroutines those are suited for various planned projects at University…
Particle acceleration in a quasilinear plasma wake provides access to high acceleration gradients while avoiding self-trapping of the background electrons. However, the plasma response to the externally injected witness bunch leads to a…
We demonstrate experimentally the resonant excitation of plasma waves by trains of laser pulses. We also take an important first step to achieving an energy recovery plasma accelerator by showing that unused wakefield energy can be removed…
Multi-objective optimization is important for particle accelerators where various competing objectives must be satisfied routinely such as, for example, transverse emittance vs bunch length. We develop and demonstrate an online multi-time…
The injection of electrons into a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) is observed to generate an intense coherent ultra-broadband and ultrashort pulse radiation flash, consistent with the acceleration of electrons from rest to nearly the…
Relativistic laser wakefield acceleration is characterized by an unsurpassed accelerating gradient, which is very suitable for electron acceleration over short distances and could be a promising candidate for next-generation compact…
We focus on the process of plasma acceleration in the presence of non-negligible thermal effects, wherein a driver of relativistic electrons perturbs a warm neutral plasma and generates a wakefield structure. We study the acceleration…
Ionization injection triggered by short wavelength laser pulses inside a nonlinear wakefield driven by a longer wavelength laser is examined via multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We find that very bright electron beams can be…
The features of Betatron x-ray emission produced in a laser-plasma accelerator are closely linked to the properties of the relativistic electrons which are at the origin of the radiation. While in interaction regimes explored previously the…
Plasma-based acceleration (PBA) has emerged as a promising candidate for the accelerator technology used to build a future linear collider and/or an advanced light source. In PBA, a trailing or witness particle beam is accelerated in the…
While laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) in the bubble regime demands ultra-short, high-peak-power laser pulses, operation in the self-modulated regime (SM-LWFA) works with more relaxed pulse conditions, albeit at the cost of lower beam…
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…
The interaction of intense particle bunches with plasma can give rise to plasma wakes capable of sustaining gigavolt-per-metre electric fields, which are orders of magnitude higher than provided by state-of-the-art radio-frequency…
Basic principles of particle-in-cell (PIC ) codes with the main application for plasma-based acceleration are discussed. The ab initio full electromagnetic relativistic PIC codes provide the most reliable description of plasmas. Their…
Recent experimental and theoretical results have demonstrated the possibility of accelerating electrons in the MeV range by focusing tightly a few-cycle laser beam in ambient air. Using Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations, this configuration…
An electron injector concept for laser-plasma accelerator was developed in ref [1] and [2] ; it relies on the use of counter-propagating ultrashort laser pulses. In [2], the scheme is as follows: the pump laser pulse generates a large…
We present a technique, based on a dipole magnet spectrometer containing multiple scintillation screens, to accurately characterize the spectral distribution of a GeV electron beam generated by laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA). An…
New acceleration technology is mandatory for the future elucidation of fundamental particles and their interactions. A promising approach is to exploit the properties of plasmas. Past research has focused on creating large-amplitude plasma…