Physics Commons^™

Studies Of Laser Wakefield Structures And Electron Acceleration In Underdense Plasmas, Anatoly Maksimchuk, Steven A. Reed, Stepan S. Bulanov, Vladimir Chvykov, Galina Kalintchenko, Takeshi Matsuoka, Christopher Mcguffey, Gerard Mourou, Natalia Naumova, John Nees, Pascal Rousseau, Victor Yanovsky, Karl Krushelnick, Nicholas H. Matlis, Serguei Y. Kalmykov, Gennady Shvets, Michael C. Downer, C. R. Vane, J. R. Beene, Daniel W. Stracener, David R. Schultz

Serge Youri Kalmykov

Experiments on electron acceleration and optical diagnostics of laser wakes were performed on the HERCULES facility in a wide range of laser and plasma parameters. Using frequency domain holography we demonstrated single shot visualization of individual plasma waves, produced by 40 TW, 30 fs laser pulses focused to the intensity of 10^{19} W/cm^2 onto a supersonic He gas jet with plasma densities n_e ~ 10^{19} cm^{−3}. These holographic “snapshots” capture the variation in shape of the plasma wave with distance behind the driver, and resolve wave front curvature seen previously only in simulations. High-energy quasimonoenergetic electron beams were generated using …