Related papers: Transversely pumped laser driven particle accelera…
Radiotherapy using very high-energy electron (VHEE) beams generated by a laser-plasma accelerator has garnered significant interest due to its dose distribution capabilities and potential to address limitations of traditional photon-based…
We present methods and preliminary observations of two pulse Direct Laser Acceleration in a Laser-Driven Plasma Accelerator. This acceleration mechanism uses a second co-propagating laser pulse to overlap and further accelerate electrons in…
In this dissertation, a fully object-oriented, fully relativistic, multi-dimensional Particle-In-Cell code was developed and applied to answer key questions in plasma-based accelerator research. The simulations increase the understanding of…
Laser-driven ion acceleration is an attractive technique for compact high-energy ion sources. Currently, among various physical and technical issues to be solved, the boost of ion energy and the reduction of energy spread represent the key…
Plasma acceleration has emerged as a promising technology for future particle accelerators, particularly linear colliders. Significant progress has been made in recent decades toward high-efficiency and high-quality acceleration of…
Here we present results from an experiment performed at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research. A mono-energetic beam of chromium ions with initial energies of $\sim 450$ MeV was fired through a magnetized interaction region formed…
Raman amplification in plasma has been promoted as a means of compressing picosecond optical laser pulses to femtosecond duration to explore the intensity frontier. Here we show for the first time that it can be used, with equal success, to…
Intense ultrashort laser pulses propagating through an underdense plasma are able to drive relativistic plasma waves, creating accelerating structures with extreme gradients. These structures represent a new type of compact sources for…
Achieving high-quality electron beams from laser wakefield accelerators critically relies on density tailoring to control electron dynamics during injection, acceleration, and extraction. We report on the experimental observation of…
We describe a new approach for driving GeV-scale plasma accelerators with long laser pulses. We show that the temporal phase of a long, high-energy driving laser pulse can be modulated periodically by co-propagating it with low-amplitude…
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…
The spectacular development of Laser-Plasma Accelerators (LPA) appears very promising for a free electron laser application. The handling of the inherent properties of those LPA beams already allowed controlled production of LPA-based…
An improved acceleration scheme to produce protons with controlled divergence and concentrated energy density is studied using ultrashort ultraintense (USUI) laser pulse interaction with a tailored hole-target in target normal sheath…
We have investigated the role that the transverse electric field of the laser plays in the acceleration of electrons in a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) operating in the quasi-blowout regime through particle-in-cell code simulations. In…
Direct laser acceleration (DLA) offers a compact source of high-charge, energetic electrons for generating secondary radiation or neutrons. While DLA in high-density plasma optimizes the energy transfer from a laser pulse to electrons, it…
Plasma-based accelerators have achieved tremendous progress in the past few decades, thanks to the advances of high power lasers and the availability of high-energy and relativistic particle beams. However, the electrons (or positrons)…
Particle accelerators represent an indispensable tool in science and industry. However, the size and cost of conventional radio-frequency accelerators limit the utility and reach of this technology. Dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs)…
Laser wakefield accelerators rely on the extremely high electric fields of nonlinear plasma waves to trap and accelerate electrons to relativistic energies over short distances. When driven strongly enough, plasma waves break, trapping a…
The widespread use of high energy particle beams in basic research, medicine and coherent X-ray generation coupled with the large size of modern radio frequency (RF) accelerator devices and facilities has motivated a strong need for…
Plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) is a promising method for reducing the scale and cost of future electron-positron collider experiments by using shorter plasma sections to enhance beam energy. While electron acceleration has already…