Numerical modelling of a 10-cm-long multi-GeV laser wakefield accelerator driven by a self-guided petawatt pulse

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

doi:10.1088/1367-2630/12/4/045019

Cited by 48 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…[11][12][13][14][15] Both numerical modeling 3,[16][17][18] and direct experimental diagnostics 19,20 show close correlation between generation of collimated, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams and formation of a unique plasma structureelectron density "bubble"-trailing in the wake of a tightly focused ultraintense laser pulse (I peak > 10 19 W=cm 2 ). The laser ponderomotive force creates full electron cavitation behind the driver, while fully stripped ions remain immobile.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electron self-injection into an evolving plasma bubble: Quasi-monoenergetic laser-plasma acceleration in the blowout regime

et al. 2011

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Electron self-injection into an evolving plasma bubble: Quasi-monoenergetic laser-plasma acceleration in the blowout regime" (2011 An electron density bubble driven in a rarefied uniform plasma by a slowly evolving laser pulse goes through periods of adiabatically slow expansions and contractions. Bubble expansion causes robust self-injection of initially quiescent plasma electrons, whereas stabilization and contraction terminate self-injection thus limiting injected charge; concomitant phase space rotation reduces the bunch energy spread. In regimes relevant to experiments with hundred terawatt-to petawatt-class lasers, bubble dynamics and, hence, the self-injection process are governed primarily by the driver evolution. Collective transverse fields of the trapped electron bunch reduce the accelerating gradient and slow down phase space rotation. Bubble expansion followed by stabilization and contraction suppresses the low-energy background and creates a collimated quasi-monoenergetic electron bunch long before dephasing. Nonlinear evolution of the laser pulse (spot size oscillations, self-compression, and front steepening) can also cause continuous self-injection, resulting in a large dark current, degrading the electron beam quality.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electron self-injection into an evolving plasma bubble: Quasi-monoenergetic laser-plasma acceleration in the blowout regime

et al. 2011

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“…The PIC algorithm uses FDTD to update the electromagnetic fields, while tracking particles in continuous phase space. PIC simulations were used to predict injection of quasimonoenergetic bunches in self-trapping LPA experiments [26], and continue to be used extensively to understand the complex dynamics of the injection process [27][28][29][30].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generalized algorithm for control of numerical dispersion in explicit time-domain electromagnetic simulations

Cowan

Bruhwiler

Cary

et al. 2013

Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams

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We describe a modification to the finite-difference time-domain algorithm for electromagnetics on a Cartesian grid which eliminates numerical dispersion error in vacuum for waves propagating along a grid axis. We provide details of the algorithm, which generalizes previous work by allowing 3D operation with a wide choice of aspect ratio, and give conditions to eliminate dispersive errors along one or more of the coordinate axes. We discuss the algorithm in the context of laser-plasma acceleration simulation, showing significant reduction-up to a factor of 280, at a plasma density of 10 23 m À3 -of the dispersion error of a linear laser pulse in a plasma channel. We then compare the new algorithm with the standard electromagnetic update for laser-plasma accelerator stage simulations, demonstrating that by controlling numerical dispersion, the new algorithm allows more accurate simulation than is otherwise obtained. We also show that the algorithm can be used to overcome the critical but difficult challenge of consistent initialization of a relativistic particle beam and its fields in an accelerator simulation.

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“…Electron cavitation relaxes limitations on the charge imposed by beam loading [4]. The bubble readily traps relativistic electrons from its sheath [1,5,6,7], reducing the technical complexity of the experiment while preserving flexibility in parameters [2,5,7]. Robustness of self-injection is rooted in the adiabatically slow evolution of the bubble, which, in turn, is tied to the nonlinear optical evolution of the driver [5,6,7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The bubble readily traps relativistic electrons from its sheath [1,5,6,7], reducing the technical complexity of the experiment while preserving flexibility in parameters [2,5,7]. Robustness of self-injection is rooted in the adiabatically slow evolution of the bubble, which, in turn, is tied to the nonlinear optical evolution of the driver [5,6,7,8]. Therefore, controlling relativistic optical phenomena, such as self-focusing [9], phase self-modulation and pulse self-compression [10], provides an opportunity to manage the fully kinetic self-injection process and optimize electron beam parameters [8,11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, 0.1 to 0.8 GeV beams can be readily produced in a controllable fashion using table-top-scale systems [2]. However, extending electron energy beyond this range (while preserving the beam quality) takes away the advantage of compactness, requiring multi-cm length plasmas and large laser systems delivering multi-100 J, PW-power pulses [1,5]. This presents a number of challenges for the laser technology [12], target design, and predictive modeling [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sub-millimeter-scale, 100-MeV-class quasi-monoenergetic laser plasma accelerator based on all-optical control of dark current in the blowout regime

Kalmykov¹,

Davoine²,

Shadwick³

2013

AIP Conference Proceedings

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It is demonstrated that by negatively chirping the frequency of a 20-fs, 15-TW driving laser pulse with an ultrabroad bandwidth (corresponding to a sub-2-cycle transform-limited duration) it is possible to prevent early compression of the pulse into an optical shock, thus reducing expansion of the accelerating plasma bucket (electron density "bubble") and delaying dephasing of self-injected and accelerated electrons. These features help suppress unwanted continuous selfinjection (dark current) in the blowout regime, making possible to use the entire dephasing length to generate lowbackground, quasi-monoenergetic 200-MeV-scale electron beams from sub-mm-length dense plasmas (n e0 =1.3×10 19 cm −3 ).

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Numerical modelling of a 10-cm-long multi-GeV laser wakefield accelerator driven by a self-guided petawatt pulse

Cited by 48 publications

References 39 publications

Electron self-injection into an evolving plasma bubble: Quasi-monoenergetic laser-plasma acceleration in the blowout regime

Electron self-injection into an evolving plasma bubble: Quasi-monoenergetic laser-plasma acceleration in the blowout regime

Generalized algorithm for control of numerical dispersion in explicit time-domain electromagnetic simulations

Sub-millimeter-scale, 100-MeV-class quasi-monoenergetic laser plasma accelerator based on all-optical control of dark current in the blowout regime

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