We demonstrate laser wakefield acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic electron bunches up to 15 MeV at 1 kHz repetition rate with 2.5 pC charge per bunch and a core with <7 mrad beam divergence. Acceleration is driven by 5 fs, < 2.7 mJ laser pulses incident on a thin, near-critical density hydrogen gas jet. Low beam divergence is attributed to reduced sensitivity to laser carrier envelope phase slip, achieved in two ways using laser polarization and gas jet control: (1) electron injection into the wake on the gas jet's plasma density downramp, and (2) use of circularly polarized drive pulses. Under conditions of mild wavebreaking in the downramp, electron beam profiles have a 2D Lorentzian shape consistent with a 𝜅 ("kappa") electron energy distribution. Such distributions had previously been observed only in space or dusty plasmas. We attribute this shape to the strongly correlated collisionless bunch confined by the quadratic wakefield bubble potential, where transverse velocity space diffusion is imparted to the bunch by the red-shifted laser field in the bubble.

We demonstrate acceleration of quasi mono-energetic electron bunches up to ~15 MeV at 1kHz repetition rate with > pC charge per bunch while using <3mJ laser pulse energy.

We observe the acceleration of electron bunches with a Lorentzian transverse profile using few-cycle laser pulses focused on the downstream side of a near-critical hydrogen gas jet.

We demonstrate interferometric measurements of plasma formed by a laser pulse above the relativistic self-focusing power for near-critical density plasmas using a third harmonic probe.

We demonstrate acceleration of quasi mono-energetic electron bunches up to ~15 MeV at 1kHz repetition rate with > pC charge per bunch while using <3mJ laser pulse energy.