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Abstract Photon engineering can be exploited to control the nonlinear evolution of the drive pulse in a laser–plasma accelerator (LPA), offering new avenues to tailor electron beam phase space on a femtosecond time scale. One promising option is to drive an LPA with an incoherent stack of two sub-Joule, multi-TW pulses of different colors. Slow self-compression of the bi-color optical driver delays electron dephasing, boosting electron beam energy without accumulation of a massive low-energy tail. The modest energy of the stack affords kHz-scale repetition rate at manageable laser average power. Propagating the stack in a pre-formed plasma channel induces periodic self-focusing in the trailing pulse, causing oscillations in the size of accelerating bucket. The resulting periodic injection generates, over a mm-scale distance, a train of GeV-scale electron bunches with 5D brightness exceeding 1 0 17 A ∕ m 2. This unconventional comb-like beam, with femtosecond synchronization and controllable energy spacing of components, emits, via Thomson scattering, a train of highly collimated gigawatt γ -ray pulses. Each pulse, corresponding to a distinct energy band between 2.5 and 25 MeV, contains over 1 0 6 photons. Highlights • Stacked-pulse-driven laser–plasma electron accelerator (SPD LPA) is introduced. • SPD LPA overcomes limitations of conventional single-color LPA energy scaling. • Joule-scale energy of stack permits kHz repetition rate with kW average laser power. • SPD LPA in plasma channel generates a train of bright, fs-scale GeV electron bunches. • Thomson scattering from e-bunch train produces multi-color train of MeV γ -ray pulses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser wakefield acceleration of electrons in the blowout regime can be controlled by tailoring the laser pulse phase and the plasma target. The 100 nm-scale bandwidth and negative frequency chirp of the optical driver compensate for the nonlinear frequency red-shift imparted by wakefield excitation. This mitigates pulse self-steepening and suppresses continuous injection. The plasma channel suppresses diffraction of the pulse leading edge, further reducing self-steepening, making injection even quieter. Besides, the channel destabilizes the pulse tail confined within the accelerator cavity (the electron density “bubble”), causing oscillations in the bubble size. The resulting periodic injection generates background-free comb-like beams – sequences of synchronized, low phase-space volume bunches. Controlling the number of bunches, their energy, and energy spacing by varying the channel radius and the pulse length (as permitted by the large bandwidth) enables the design of a tunable, all-optical source of polychromatic, pulsed γ-rays using the mechanism of inverse Thomson scattering. Such source may radiate ~ 10 7 quasi-monochromatic 10 MeV-scale photons per shot into a microsteradian-scale observation angle. The photon energy is distributed among several distinct bands, each having sub-25% energy spread dictated by the mrad-scale divergence of electron beam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: It is demonstrated that a laser pulse with an ultrahigh bandwidth ( nm) is an asset for future high-repetition-rate, quasimonoenergetic (QME), GeV-scale laser plasma electron accelerators. Manipulating the phase of the driver has a direct impact on evolution of the accelerating bucket (a cavity of electron density maintained by the pressure of the laser pulse radiation), making it possible to control electron self-injection and the final parameters of the QME beam by purely optical means. The large bandwidth makes it possible to compensate for the frequency red-shift accumulated at the pulse leading edge in transit through the plasma. Advancing higher frequencies in time (viz. introducing a negative frequency chirp of the incident pulse) reduces the red-shift, preventing self-compression of the pulse into a relativistic optical shock. This avoids constant expansion of the plasma bucket, suppressing continuous self-injection of copious unwanted electrons, keeping the beam almost free of a high-charge, poorly collimated low-energy tail. In addition, gradually increasing the plasma density in the forward direction locks electrons in the accelerating phase, delaying their dephasing and boosting their energy without increasing the tail. Advantages of this technique are demonstrated here for acceleration in sub-millimeter-length, dense plasmas ( ), using 100-mJ-scale energy laser pulses. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that a negatively chirped, 15TW pulse with a 20fs length and a bandwidth corresponding to a transform-limited duration below two optical cycles, in combination with a modest density taper (corresponding to 25% linear increase of the density in the forward direction), transfers 3.5% of its energy to a 300MeV electron bunch with relative energy spread below 4% and flux a factor 4.5 higher than the average flux in the tail. The acceleration occurs over a 0.6mm plasma with the electron density at the center of the target . Chirp and taper increase the QME bunch energy by 50% and brightness more than twice, while reducing the average flux in the tail by more than a half. This optically controlled, miniature 100-MeV-scale accelerator naturally affords high-repetition-rate operation important for radiation physics applications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]