Physics Commons^™

Physical Processes At Work In Sub-30fs, Pw Laser Pulse-Driven Plasma Accelerators: Towards Gev Electron Acceleration Experiments At Cilex Facility., Arnaud Beck, Serge Y. Kalmykov, Xavier Davoine, Agustin F. Lifschitz, Bradley A. Shadwick, Victor Malka, Arnd E. Specka

Serge Youri Kalmykov

Optimal regimes and physical processes at work are identified for the first round of laser wakefield acceleration experiments proposed at a future CILEX facility. The Apollon-10P CILEX laser, delivering fully compressed, near-PW-power pulses of sub-25 fs duration, is well suited for driving electron density wakes in the blowout regime in cm-length gas targets. Early destruction of the pulse (partly due to energy depletion)prevents electrons from reaching dephasing, limiting the energy gain to about 3 GeV. However, the optimal operating regimes, found with reduced and full three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, show high energy efficiency, with about 10%of incident pulse energy transferred to …