Related papers: Asymmetry in laser wakefields driven by intense pu…
Laser wakefield accelerators have emerged as a promising candidate for compact synchrotron radiation and even x-ray free electron lasers. Today, to make the electrons emit electromagnetic radiation, the trajectories of laser wakefield…
The recent PVLAS experiment observed the rotation of polarization and the ellipticity when a linearly polarized laser beam passes through a transverse magnetic field. The phenomenon cannot be explained in the conventional QED. We attempt to…
All evidence so far suggests that the absolute spatial orientation of an experiment never affects its outcome. This is reflected in the Standard Model of physics by requiring all particles and fields to be invariant under Lorentz…
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…
Polarized electron beam production via laser wakefield acceleration in pre-polarized plasma is investigated by particle-in-cell simulations. The evolution of the electron beam polarization is studied based on the…
A linear electron-positron collider operating at TeV scale energies will provide high precision measurements and allow, for example, precision studies of the Higgs boson as well as searches for physics beyond the standard model. A future…
We study the direct acceleration of a free electron in infinite vacuum along the axis of a pulsed radially-polarized laser beam. We find that net energy transfer from laser pulse to electron is maximized with the tightest focusing. We show…
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…
A formalism for describing relativistic ponderomotive effects, which occur in the dynamics of an electron driven by a focused relativisticaly intense optical envelope, is established on the basis of a rigorous asymptotic expansion of the…
Energy-transfer efficiency is an important quantity in plasma-wakefield acceleration, especially for applications that demand high average power. Conventionally, the efficiency is measured using an electron spectrometer; an invasive method…
Relativistic wakes produced by intense laser or particle beams propagating through plasmas are being considered as accelerators for next generation of colliders and coherent light sources. Such wakes have been shown to accelerate electrons…
The tremendous progress in high-intensity laser technology and the establishment of dedicated high-field laboratories in recent years have paved the way towards a first observation of quantum vacuum nonlinearities at the high-intensity…
A new electron acceleration mechanism is identified that develops when a relativistically intense laser irradiates the wedge of an over-dense plasma. This induces a diffracted electromagnetic wave with a significant longitudinal electric…
The effect of the pulse envelope on electron-positron pair creation in a circularly-polarised laser pulse is investigated. Interference on the length scale of the pulse envelope, and smoothness of the pulse edges are found to influence the…
We observe momentum transfer in the ponderomotive potential of near-infrared (NIR) laser pulses in time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (tr-ARPES) experiments with ultrashort extreme ultraviolet probe pulses. Acceleration of…
Ultrafast electron microscopy provides a movie-like access to structural dynamics of materials in space and time, but fundamental atomic motions or electron dynamics are, so far, too quick to be resolved. Here we report the all-optical…
Non-classical electron diffusion in crossed-field, low-temperature plasmas is measured experimentally. Laser-induced fluorescence and Thomson scattering are used to determine the inverse Hall parameter, a metric for cross-field transport,…
The effect of laser focusing conditions on the evolution of relativistic plasma waves in laser wakefield accelerators is studied both experimentally and with particle-in-cell simulations. For short focal length ($w_0 < \lambda_p$)…
Circularly polarized colliding laser pulses can create abundant electron-positron pair plasma [A. R. Bell and J. G. Kirk, Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 200403 (2008)], which scattering the incoming electromagnetic waves can prevent them from…
In the present work, we demonstrate for the first time a proof-of-principle experiment for nanoparticle-assisted laser wakefield acceleration. The nanoparticles, generated through laser ablation of aluminium, were introduced into the plasma…