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Propagating a short, relativistically intense laser pulse in a plasma channel makes it possible to generate clean comb-like electron beams - sequences of synchronized, low phase-space volume bunches with controllable energy spacing [S. Y. Kalmykov et al., "Accordion Effect Revisited: Generation of Comb-Like Electron Beams in Plasma Channels," in Advanced Accelerator Concepts: 16th Workshop, AIP Conference Proceedings; this volume]. All-optical control of the electron beam phase space structure via manipulation of the drive pulse phase (negative chirp) and parameters of the channel enables the design of a tunable, all-optical source of polychromatic pulsed γ-rays using the mechanism of inverse Compton scattering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently it was proposed in [A. F. Lifschitz, et. al., J. Comp. Phys. 228, 1803 (2009)] that laser wakefield acceleration could be modeled efficiently using a particle-in-cell code in cylindrical coordinates if the fields and currents were expanded into Fourier modes in the azimuthal angle, φ. We have implemented this algorithm into OSIRIS, including a new rigorous charge conserving deposition routine applicable for it [A. Davidson, et. al., J. Comp. Phys. 281, 1063 (2014)]. This algorithm can be interpreted as a PIC description in r??z and a gridless description in φ in which the expansion into φ modes is truncated at a desired level. This new quasi-3D algorithm greatly reduces the computational load by describing important three-dimensional (3D) geometrical effects with nearly two-dimensional calculations. In this paper, we propose to combine this algorithm with the Lorentz boosted frame method for simulations of Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA). We show preliminary results, including an investigation of the unstable numerical Cerenkov instability modes for this geometry, and discuss directions for future work. These preliminary results indicate that combining the quasi-3D method and the Lorentz boosted frame method together may provide unprecedented speed ups for LWFA simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study Direct Laser Acceleration (DLA) in the bubble regime of Laser Wake-Field Acceleration (LWFA) by using a simplified single-particle model and fully self-consistent 2D PIC simulations. Two important effects occur under the combined action of the laser and wake fields. First, the dephasing length between the accelerated ultra-relativistic and the wake is significantly increased by the DLA. Secondly, a significant correlation develops between the beam's transverse emittance and its total energy. The resulting conditioned electron beams could be potentially exploited in free-electron lasers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Propagating a short, relativistically intense laser pulse in a plasma channel makes it possible to generate comblike electron beams - sequences of synchronized, low phase-space volume bunches with controllable energy difference. The tail of the pulse, confined in the accelerator cavity (electron density "bubble"), transversely flaps, as the pulse head steadily self-guides. The resulting oscillations of the cavity size cause periodic injection of electrons from ambient plasma, creating an energy comb with the number of components, their energy, and energy separation dependent on the channel radius and pulse length. Accumulation of noise (continuously injected charge) can be prevented using a negatively chirped drive pulse with a bandwidth close to a one-half of the carrier wavelength. These comb-like beams can drive tunable, multi-color γ-ray sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) in a supersonic gas-jet using a self-guided laser pulse was studied by changing laser power and plasma electron density. The recently upgraded HERCULES laser facility equipped with wavefront correction enables a peak intensity of 6.1×1019 W/cm2 at laser power of 80 TW to be delivered to the gas-jet using F/10 focusing optics. We found that electron beam charge was increased significantly with an increase of laser power from 30 TW to 80 TW and showed density threshold behavior at a fixed laser power. We also studied the influence of laser focusing conditions by changing the f-number of the optics to F/15 and found an increase in density threshold for electron production compared to the F/10 configuration. The analysis of different phenomena such as betatron motion of electrons, side scattering of the laser pulse for different focusing conditions, the influence of plasma density down ramp on LWFA are shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compact high-energy linacs are important to applications including monochromatic gamma sources for nuclear material security applications. Recent laser wakefield accelerator experiments at LBNL demonstrated narrow energy spread beams, now with energies of up to 1 GeV in 3 cm using a plasma channel at low density. This demonstrates the production of GeV beams from devices much smaller than conventional linacs, and confirms the anticipated scaling of laser driven accelerators to GeV energies. Stable performance at 0.5 GeV was demonstrated. Experiments and simulations are in progress to control injection of particles into the wake and hence to improve beam quality and stability. Using plasma density gradients to control injection, stable beams at 1 MeV over days of operation, and with an order of magnitude lower absolute momentum spread than previously observed, have been demonstrated. New experiments are post-accelerating the beams from controlled injection experiments to increase beam quality and stability. Thomson scattering from such beams is being developed to provide collimated multi-MeV monoenergetic gamma sources for security applications from compact devices. Such sources can reduce dose to target and increase accuracy for applications including photofission and nuclear resonance fluorescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasma density gradient control of wake phase velocity and trapping threshold in a laser wakefield accelerator produced electron bunches with absolute longitudinal and transverse momentum spreads more than ten times lower than in previous experiments (0.17 and 0.02 MeV/c FWHM, respectively) and with central momenta of 0.76±0.02 MeV/c, stable over a week of operation. Simulations validated against diagnostics show that use of such bunches as a wakefield accelerator injector can produce stable beams with 0.2 MeV/c-class momentum spread at high energies. Preservation of bunch momentum spread requires high simulation momentum accuracy, and related self-trapped simulations showed that high order particle weight effectively suppresses simulation momentum errors allowing design of low emittance stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) in a supersonic gas-jet using a self-guided laser pulse was studied by changing the laser power and electron density. The recently upgraded HERCULES laser facility equipped with wavefront correction enables a peak intensity of 8×1019 W/cm2 at laser power of 100 TW to be delivered to the gas-jet using f/10 focusing optics. We found that electron beam charge was increased significantly with an increase of the laser power from 30 TW to 80 TW and showed density threshold behavior at a fixed laser power. Betatron motion of electrons was also observed depending on laser power and electron density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) in plasmas has been demonstrated with gradients which are orders of magnitude greater than the limit on conventional Radio Frequency accelerators. However, the acceleration length is limited by two factors, the dephasing length and the Rayleigh range of the laser pulse. Dephasing length is the distance in which electrons overtake the laser pulse and can be increased by decreasing plasma density. Alternatively the interaction length can be extended by orders of magnitude by using ablative wall discharge capillary targets, in which a plasma is preformed with a transverse density profile capable of guiding the focused laser. We have demonstrated guiding of high intensity laser pulses from the HERCULES laser over 3 cm for powers up to 35 TW. The quality of the laser spot can be retained and the intensity remains high even at the exit of the capillary. The transmitted laser spectrum shows blueshifting due to field ionization by the laser pulse. This ionization might enhance electron injection at low electron density for LWFA GeV accelerators. The field ionization affects carbon atoms and ions from the ablated capillary, which are not present in hydrogen-filled capillaries. This creates an additional challenge to guiding compared to hydrogen-filled capillaries. However, the setup and materials are easier to come by. The use of these capillary targets may also be of interest to other high intensity laser-plasma interactions requiring long interaction lengths such as high harmonic generation from gases and plasmas, or x-ray lasing in underdense plasmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of self-guiding of ultra short, relativistically intense laser pulses is presented. Here, the laser pulse length is on the order of the nonlinear plasma wavelength and the normalized vector potential is greater than one. Self-guiding of ultrashort laser pulses over tens of Rayliegh lengths is possible when driving a highly nonlinear wake. In this case, self-guiding is limited by nonlinear pump depletion[1,2]. Erosion of the pulse due to diffraction at the head of the laser pulse is minimized for spot sizes close to the blow-out radius[1]. This is due to the slowing of the group velocity of the photons at the head of the laser pulse. Using an approximately 10 TW Ti:Sapphire laser with a pulse length of approximately 50 fs, experimental results are presented showing self-guiding over lengths exceeding 30 Rayliegh lengths in various length Helium gas jets. Fully explicit 3D PIC simulations supporting the experimental results are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most compelling reasons to use external injection of electrons into a laser wakefield accelerator is to improve the stability and reproducibility of the accelerated electrons. We have built a simulation tool based on particle tracking to investigate the expected output parameters. Specifically, we are simulating the variations in energy and bunch charge under the influence of variations in laser power and timing jitter. In these simulations a a0 = 0.32 to a0 = 1.02 laser pulse with 10% shot-to-shot energy fluctuation is focused into a plasma waveguide with a density of 1.0×1024 m-3 and a calculated matched spot size of 50.2 μm. The timing of the injected electron bunch with respect to the laser pulse is varied from up to 1 ps from the standard timing (1 ps ahead or behind the laser pulse, depending on the regime). The simulation method and first results will be presented. Shortcomings and possible extensions to the model will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a great interest worldwide in plasma accelerators driven by ultra-intense lasers which make it possible to generate ultra-high gradient acceleration and high quality particle beams in a much more compact size compared with conventional accelerators. A frontier research on laser and plasma accelerators is focused on high energy electron acceleration and ultra-short X-ray and Tera Hertz radiations as their applications. These achievements will provide not only a wide range of sciences with benefits of a table-top accelerator but also a basic science with a tool of ultrahigh energy accelerators probing an unknown extremely microscopic world. Harnessing the recent advance of ultra-intense ultra-short pulse lasers, the worldwide research has made a tremendous breakthrough in demonstrating high-energy high-quality particle beams in a compact scale, so called “dream beams on a table top”, which represents monoenergetic electron beams from laser wakefield accelerators and GeV acceleration by capillary plasma-channel laser wakefield accelerators. This lecture reviews recent progress of results on laser-driven plasma based accelerator experiments to quest for particle acceleration physics in intense laser-plasma interactions and to present new outlook for the GeV-range high-energy laser plasma accelerators. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the Quasi-static Particle-In-Cell code QuickPIC to model laser wake field acceleration, in both uniform and parabolic plasma channels within current state of the art experimental laser and plasma parameters. QuickPIC uses the quasi-static approximation, which allows the separation of the plasma and laser evolution, as they respond in different time scales. The laser is evolved with a larger time step, that correctly resolves distances of the order of the Rayleigh length, according to the ponderomotive guiding center approximation, while the plasma response is calculated through a quasi-static field solver for each transverse 2d slice. We have performed simulations that show very good agreement between QuickPIC and three dimensional simulations using the full PIC code OSIRIS. We have scanned laser intensities from those for which linear plasma waves are excited to those for which the plasma response is highly nonlinear. For these simulations, QuickPIC was 2–3 orders of magnitude faster than OSIRIS. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Staged Electron Laser Acceleration — Laser Wakefield (STELLA-LW) experiment is investigating two new methods for laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) using the TW CO2 laser available at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Accelerator Test Facility. The first is seeded self-modulated LWFA where an ultrashort electron bunch (seed) precedes the laser pulse to generate a wakefield that the laser pulse subsequently amplifies. The second is pseudo-resonant LWFA where nonlinear pulse steepening of the laser pulse occurs in the plasma allowing the laser pulse to generate significant wakefields. The status of these experiments is reviewed. Evidence of wakefield generation caused by the seed bunches has been obtained as well as preliminary energy gain measurements of a witness bunch following the seeds. Comparison with a 1-D linear model for the wakefield generation appears to agree with the data. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have developed a 1-D, quasi-steady-state numerical model for a gas-filled capillary discharge that is designed to aid in selecting the optimum capillary radius in order to guide a laser beam with the required intensity through the capillary. The model also includes the option for an external solenoid B-field around the capillary, which increases the depth of the parabolic density channel in the capillary, thereby allowing for propagation of smaller laser beam waists. The model has been used to select the parameters for gas-filled capillaries to be utilized during the Staged Electron Laser Acceleration — Laser Wakefield (STELLA-LW) experiment. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 2.5D PIC simulation code is developed to study the LWFA( Laser WakeField Acceleration ). The electron self-injection and the generation of mono-energetic electron beam in LWFA is briefly discussed through the simulation. And the experiment of this year at SILEX-I laser facility is also introduced. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) model has been upgraded to better predict the outcome of experiments to test two new LWFA techniques. The first method is seeded self-modulated LWFA where an ultrashort electron bunch acts as a seed to create a wakefield in a plasma, which is subsequently amplified by the laser pulse. The second scheme is pseudo-resonant LWFA where nonlinear pulse steepening of the laser pulse by the plasma allows generation of a significant wakefield. A witness bunch that probes the wakefield was incorporated in the model. The model was also exercised to examine new operational regimes currently available during the experiments. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is demonstrated that the accelerating and focusing phases of the nonlinear three-dimensional axi-symmetric 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 plasma frequency shift. 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 (∼ 30 fs) weakly focused (r0 ∼ 100 μm) petawatt laser pulse. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]