Plasma and Beam Physics Commons^™

Generation Of Tunable, 100–800 Mev Quasi-Monoenergetic Electron Beams From A Laser-Wakefield Accelerator In The Blowout Regime, Sudeep Banerjee, Nathan D. Powers, Vidiya Ramanathan, Isaac Ghebregziabher, Kevin J. Brown, Chakra M. Maharjan, Shouyuan Chen, Arnaud Beck, Erik Lefebvre, Serguei Y. Kalmykov, Bradley A. Shadwick, Donald P. Umstadter

Donald P. Umstadter

In this paper, we present results on a scalable high-energy electron source based on laser wakefield acceleration. The electron accelerator using 30 - 80 TW, 30 fs laser pulses, operates in the blowout regime, and produces high-quality, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams in the range 100 - 800 MeV. These beams have angular divergence of 1 - 4 mrad, and 5 - 25 percent energy spread, with a resulting brightness 10^{11} electrons mm^{-2} MeV^{-1} mrad^{-2}. The beam parameters can be tuned by varying the laser and plasma conditions. The use of a high-quality laser pulse and appropriate target conditions enables optimization of …

Generation Of Tunable, 100–800 Mev Quasi-Monoenergetic Electron Beams From A Laser-Wakefield Accelerator In The Blowout Regime, Sudeep Banerjee, Nathan D. Powers, Vidiya Ramanathan, Isaac Ghebregziabher, Kevin J. Brown, Chakra M. Maharjan, Shouyuan Chen, Arnaud Beck, Erik Lefebvre, Serguei Y. Kalmykov, Bradley A. Shadwick, Donald P. Umstadter

Serge Youri Kalmykov

In this paper, we present results on a scalable high-energy electron source based on laser wakefield acceleration. The electron accelerator using 30 - 80 TW, 30 fs laser pulses, operates in the blowout regime, and produces high-quality, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams in the range 100 - 800 MeV. These beams have angular divergence of 1 - 4 mrad, and 5 - 25 percent energy spread, with a resulting brightness 10^{11} electrons mm^{-2} MeV^{-1} mrad^{-2}. The beam parameters can be tuned by varying the laser and plasma conditions. The use of a high-quality laser pulse and appropriate target conditions enables optimization of …

Electron Self-Injection Into An Evolving Plasma Bubble: The Way To A Dark Current Free Gev-Scale Laser Accelerator, Serguei Y. Kalmykov, Arnaud Beck, Sunghwan A. Yi, Vladimir N. Khudik, Bradley A. Shadwick, Erik Lefebvre, Michael C. Downer

Serge Youri Kalmykov

A time-varying electron density bubble created by the radiation pressure of a tightly focused petawatt laser pulse traps electrons of ambient rarefied plasma and accelerates them to a GeV energy over a few-cm distance. Expansion of the bubble caused by the shape variation of the self-guided pulse is the primary cause of electron self-injection in strongly rarefied plasmas (n_0 ~ 10^{17} cm^{−3}). Stabilization and contraction of the bubble extinguishes the injection. After the bubble stabilization, longitudinal non-uniformity of the accelerating gradient results in a rapid phase space rotation that produces a quasi-monoenergetic bunch well before the de-phasing limit. Combination of …

Numerical Modelling Of A 10-Cm-Long Multi-Gev Laser Wakefield Accelerator Driven By A Self-Guided Petawatt Pulse, Serguei Y. Kalmykov, Sunghwan A. Yi, Arnaud Beck, Agustin F. Lifschitz, Xavier Davoine, Erik Lefebvre, Alexander Pukhov, Vladimir N. Khudik, Gennady Shvets, Steven A. Reed, Peng Dong, Xiaoming Wang, Dongsu Du, Stefan Bedacht, Rafal B. Zgadzaj, Watson Henderson, Aaron Bernstein, Gilliss Dyer, Mikael Martinez, Erhard Gaul, Todd Ditmire, Michael C. Downer

Serge Youri Kalmykov

Injection, Trapping, And Acceleration Of Electrons In A Three-Dimensional Nonlinear Laser Wakefield, Serguei Y. Kalmykov, Leonid M. Gorbunov, Patrick Mora, Gennady Shvets

Serge Youri Kalmykov

It is demonstrated that the accelerating and focusing phases of the nonlinear three-dimensional axisymmetric laser wake can almost entirely overlap starting from a certain distance behind the laser pulse in homogeneous plasma. Such field structure results from the curvature of phase fronts due to the radially inhomogeneous relativistic shift of plasma frequency. Consequently, the number of trapped low-energy electrons can be much greater than that predicted by the linear wake theory. This effect is favorable for quasi-monoenergetic acceleration of a considerable charge (several hundreds of pC) to about 1 GeV per electron in the plasma wakefield driven by an ultrashort …

Laser Wakefield Acceleration By Petawatt Ultrashort Laser Pulses, Leonid M. Gorbunov, Serguei Y. Kalmykov, Patrick Mora

Serge Youri Kalmykov

An ultrashort (about 30 fs) petawatt laser pulse focused with a wide focal spot (about 100 mm) in a rarefied plasma (n_0 ~ 10^{17} cm^{−3}) excites a nonlinear plasma wakefield which can accelerate injected electrons up to GeV energies without any pulse channeling. Under these conditions, propagation of the laser pulse with an overcritical power for relativistic self-focusing is almost the same as in vacuum. The nonlinear quasiplane plasma wave, whose amplitude and phase velocity vary along the laser path, effectively traps and accelerates injected electrons with a wide range of initial energies. Electrons accelerated over two Rayleigh lengths (about …