Laser wakefield electron acceleration on Texas petawatt facility: Towards multi-GeV electron energy in a single self-guided stage

Kalmykov, Serguei Y.; Reed, Stephen A.; Yi, Sunghwan; Beck, Arnaud; Lifschitz, Agustín; Davoine, Xavier; Lefebvre, E.; Khudik, Vladimir; Shvets, Gennady; Dong, Peng; Wang, Xiaoming; Du, D.; Bedacht, S.; Zhao, Yang; Henderson, W.; Bernstein, Aaron; Dyer, G.; Martinez, M.; Gaul, E.; Ditmire, T.; Downer, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.hedp.2009.11.002

Cited by 13 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…9͒ in 1.3 cm has been demonstrated experimentally. From these and other experiments, [10][11][12] and other theoretical and simulation studies, [13][14][15][16] it is clear that having a low plasma density and high laser power leads to the acceleration of "quasimonoenergetic" beams to high energy in the bubble regime. However, for such a beam to be useful in accelerators, one needs not only high energy but also good beam quality, measured in terms of a large beam current, low energy-spread, and low normalized emittance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Generation of very low energy-spread electron beams using low-intensity laser pulses in a low-density plasma

et al. 2011

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The possibility of obtaining high-energy electron beams of high quality by using a low-density homogeneous plasma and a low-intensity laser (just above the self-injection threshold in the bubble regime) has been explored. Three-dimensional simulations are used to demonstrate, for the first time, an energy-spread of less than 1%, from self-trapping. More specifically, for a plasma density of 2×1018 cm−3 and a laser intensity of a0=2, a high-energy (0.55 GeV), ultrashort (1.4 fs) electron beam with very low energy-spread (0.55%) and high current (3 kA) is obtained. These parameters satisfy the requirements for drivers of short-wavelength free-electron lasers. It is also found that the quality of the electron beam depends strongly on the plasma length, which therefore needs to be optimized carefully to get the best performance in the experiments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Generation of very low energy-spread electron beams using low-intensity laser pulses in a low-density plasma

et al. 2011

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“…2(a)]. This crossing point avoided a region of strong pump side-scatter in the first 2-3 cm of the cell, 17 while probing a region in which, according to simulations, 19 the drive pulse had finished self-focusing and drove a steady-state bubble. We diagnosed pump-probe spatiotemporal overlap during test shots with reduced-energy (∼1 J), rep-rated pump pulses and an air-filled cell, by observing probe refraction from the pump-ionized plasma column.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Forefront LPAs that accelerate electrons to multi-GeV energy, 2,17,18 on the other hand, require much lower density plasma (n e ∼ few 10 17 cm −3 ) in order to extend dephasing and pump depletion lengths to multiple centimeters. 11 To form plasma bubbles, they also require laser drivers of peak power P > ∼ 10P cr , 19 where P cr = 17(n cr /n e ) GW is the critical power for relativistic self-focusing and n cr ≈ 10 21 /[λ(µm)] 2 cm −3 is the critical plasma density for a driver of wavelength λ. This enables the drive pulse to self-focus smoothly to field strengths 3 < ∼ a 0 < ∼ 6 sufficient to blow out a steady-state bubble.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faraday rotation study of plasma bubbles in GeV wakefield accelerators

Chang,

Cheng,

Hannasch

et al. 2021

Preprint

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We visualize plasma bubbles driven by 0.67 PW laser pulses in plasma of density n e ≈ 5 × 10 17 cm −3 by imaging Faraday rotation patterns imprinted on linearly-polarized probe pulses of wavelength λ pr = 1.05 µm and duration τ pr = 2 ps or 1 ps that cross the bubble's path at right angles. When the bubble captures and accelerates tens to hundreds of pC of electron charge, we observe two parallel streaks of length cτ pr straddling the drive pulse propagation axis, separated by ∼ 45 µm, in which probe polarization rotates by 0.3 • to more than 5 • in opposite directions. Accompanying simulations show that they result from Faraday rotation within portions of dense bubble side walls that are pervaded by the azimuthal magnetic field of accelerating electrons during the probe transit across the bubble. Analysis of the width of the streaks shows that quasi-monoenergetic high-energy electrons and trailing lower energy electrons inside the bubble contribute distinguishable portions of the observed signals, and that relativistic flow of sheath electrons suppresses Faraday rotation from the rear of the bubble. The results demonstrate favorable scaling of Faraday rotation diagnostics to 40× lower plasma density than previously demonstrated.

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“…The same guiding can also be achieved by choosing a spot-size comparable to or slightly larger than the plasma wavelength, but with an intensity that is less than in the matched case (so that power is nearly the same). 6,8,[18][19][20] The generation of GeV-class beams, both in experiments 6,7,[9][10][11] and in simulations, 13,[19][20][21][22][23][24] has been observed in such plasmas of lower density.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tailoring the laser pulse shape to improve the quality of the self-injected electron beam in laser wakefield acceleration

2013

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In laser wakefield acceleration, tailoring the shape of the laser pulse is one way of influencing the laser-plasma interaction and, therefore, of improving the quality of the self-injected electron beam in the bubble regime. Using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, the evolution dynamics of the laser pulse and the quality of the self-injected beam, for a Gaussian pulse, a positive skew pulse (i.e., one with sharp rise and slow fall), and a negative skew pulse (i.e., one with a slow rise and sharp fall) are studied. It is observed that with a negative skew laser pulse there is a substantial improvement in the emittance (by around a factor of two), and a modest improvement in the energy-spread, compared to Gaussian as well as positive skew pulses. However, the injected charge is less in the negative skew pulse compared to the other two. It is also found that there is an optimal propagation distance that gives the best beam quality; beyond this distance, though the energy increases, the beam quality deteriorates, but this deterioration is least for the negative skew pulse. Thus, the negative skew pulse gives an improvement in terms of beam quality (emittance and energy spread) over what one can get with a Gaussian or positive skew pulse. In part, this is because of the lesser injected charge, and the strong suppression of continuous injection for the negative skew pulse. V C 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.

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Laser wakefield electron acceleration on Texas petawatt facility: Towards multi-GeV electron energy in a single self-guided stage

Cited by 13 publications

References 37 publications

Generation of very low energy-spread electron beams using low-intensity laser pulses in a low-density plasma

Generation of very low energy-spread electron beams using low-intensity laser pulses in a low-density plasma

Faraday rotation study of plasma bubbles in GeV wakefield accelerators

Tailoring the laser pulse shape to improve the quality of the self-injected electron beam in laser wakefield acceleration

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