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Here, we developed a high-resolution, dual-channel toroidal-crystal x-ray imager for time-framed x-ray backlit imaging diagnostics using the 4.727 keV helium-like Ti line. We also presented a method for adjusting the dual-channel imager through the self-imaging of a two-dimensional periodic object. Offline x-ray experiments achieved a spatial resolution of ∼5.0 μm in the center and better than 8.0 μm within a field of view (FOV) of ∼2 mm. At the ShenGuang-III prototype laser facility, we obtained imaging results with a spatial resolution of better than 5 μm within an FOV of ±40 µm. This imager thus provides a way of observing with high spatial, temporal, and spectral resolutions to diagnose the behavior of laser-produced plasma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultrahigh-energy density (UHED) states greater than 1 Gbar pressure are typically observed under extreme conditions, such as in the core of an inertial confinement fusion implosion. A novel alternative approach for generating volumetric UHED states is to use nanowire arrays irradiated with a femtosecond ultrahigh-intensity laser. In this paper, we present an experimental investigation on laser absorption and energy transport in nanowire arrays irradiated with a picosecond kilojoule petawatt laser. The laser–target interactions were studied by measuring the x-ray emission and escaping hot electrons from a bare Cu foil and a foil with a nanowire array grown on its surface. The measured Cu-Kα and He-α emissions from the nanowire array were higher than those from the flat foil. In addition, hot electrons observed from the front surface of the nanowire array were enhanced. On the other hand, despite the stronger Kα emission from the nanowire array and the enhancement of hot electrons escaping from the front surface of the nanowire array, the number of hot electrons observed from the rear side of the flat foil target was slightly lower than that of the flat foil. A comparison of the experimental results with the results of a two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation code suggested that the magnetic fields generated around the periodic nanowire array trap hot electrons, improving the electron-to-target energy coupling and efficiently producing UHED states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We proposed and examined experimentally that the charge of the 100 MeV-class electron bunches from laser wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) can be improved to ∼400 pC with the aid of a structured nozzle system. A 43 TW laser pulse driver with 30 fs duration is incident on a density structured gas target, which is created by a 4 mm long gas jet and a moveable slender needle nozzle with 0.8 mm diameter. The charge of produced beam increases compared with that from merely a gas jet (∼100 pC) and reaches its maximum (∼400 pC) at an optimal relative position. Particle-in-cell simulations show that the self-focused spot size and intensity of the laser pulse can be tuned continuously and reveal how the detailed dynamics of the laser pulse evolution, the electron injection, and acceleration in this structured gas target affects the beam charge. This work demonstrates the feasibility of adjusting the laser pulse distribution through its evolution in a plasma to significantly improve the injected charge in LWFAs, which is beneficial for many applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser WakeField Acceleration (LWFA) is extensively used as a high-energy electron source, with electrons achieving energies up to the GeV level. The produced electron beam characteristics depend strongly on the gas density profile. When the gaseous target is a gas jet, the gas density profile is affected by parameters, such as the nozzle geometry, the gas used, and the backing pressure applied to the gas valve. An electron source based on the LWFA mechanism has recently been developed at the Institute of Plasma Physics and Lasers. To improve controllability over the electron source, we developed a set of 3D-printed nozzles suitable for creating different gas density profiles according to the experimental necessities. Here, we present a study of the design, manufacturing, evaluation, and performance of a 3D-printed nozzle intended for LWFA experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High intensity and high energy laser facilities place increasing demands on optical components, requiring large surface area optics with exacting specifications. Petawatt lasers are high energy, short-pulse laser systems generally based on chirped-pulse amplification, where an initial low energy short pulse is stretched, amplified, and then recompressed to produce fs to ps high-power laser pulses. In such petawatt lasers, the highest demands are placed on the final optics, including gratings which compress the pulses and mirrors which direct and focus the final high-power beams. The limiting factor in these optical components is generally laser-induced damage. Designing and fabricating these optical components to meet reflection, dispersion, and other requirements while meeting laser-induced damage requirements is the primary challenge discussed in this tutorial. We will introduce the reader to the technical challenges and tradeoffs required to produce mirrors for petawatt lasers and discuss current research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on the first direct voltage and current measurements from a laser-generated magnetic field coil target. The magnetic field was observed to scale with the laser intensity as B ∝ I laser 0.66 ± 0.13 . This scaling relation can be derived from the measured voltage approximated by the laser-heated plasma electron temperature T e. The experiments used a 1053 nm laser with pulse lengths ranging from 0.5 to 20 ns and intensities ranging from 10 9 to 10 14 W / cm 2 to generate an electric potential that drives current through the coil. We show that the behavior of the coil can be described with a lumped-element circuit model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) is a fusion concept that uses magnetized, preheated fuel to reduce the implosion velocities and convergence ratios required for ignition. A scaled, laser-driven experimental platform to study MagLIF has been demonstrated on the OMEGA laser system, providing comprehensive experimental data on MagLIF scaling, utilizing the higher shot rate on OMEGA compared to the Z machine. Using this platform, a broader experimental space for MagLIF has been studied. Presented in this article are experimental results that demonstrate that the combination of preheat and magnetization enhances the neutron yield by 470% compared to a reference implosion, significantly more than the yield enhancement by the field or preheat alone. These results are achieved while maintaining a relatively low convergence ratio (<20). The experiments were supported by one-, two-, and three-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics simulations, all of which suggest that multiple sources of mix play different key roles depending on the scale of the MagLIF experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An external magnetic field applied to a laser plasma is shown to produce a plasma channel at densities relevant to creating GeV monoenergetic electrons through laser wakefield acceleration. Furthermore, the magnetic field also provides a pressure to help shape the channel to match the guiding conditions of an incident laser beam. Measured density channels suitable for guiding relativistic short-pulse laser beams are presented with a minimum density of 5 × 1017 cm[?]3, which corresponds to a linear dephasing length of several centimeters suitable for multi-GeV electron acceleration. The experimental setup at the Jupiter Laser Facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where a 1 ns, 150 J, 1054 nm laser will produce a magnetically controlled channel to guide a < 75 fs, 10 J short-pulse laser beam through 5 cm of 5 × 1017 cm[?]3 plasma is presented. Calculations presented show that electrons can be accelerated to 3 GeV with this system. Three-dimensional resistive magneto-hydrodynamic simulations are used to design the laser and plasma parameters, and quasi-static kinetic simulations indicate that the channel will guide a 200 TW laser beam over 5 cm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser propagation experiments using four beams of the National Ignition Facility to deliver up to 35 kJ of laser energy at 351 nm laser wavelength to heat magnetized liner inertial fusion-scale (1 cm-long), hydrocarbon-filled gas pipe targets to ∼keV electron temperatures have demonstrated energy coupling >20 kJ with essentially no backscatter in 15% critical electron density gas fills with 0–19 T applied axial magnetic fields. The energy coupling is also investigated for an electron density of 11.5% critical and for applied field strengths up to 24 T at both densities. This spans a range of Hall parameters 0 < ω c e τ e i ≲ 2, where a Hall parameter of 0.5 is expected to reduce electron thermal conduction across the field lines by a factor of 4–5 for the conditions of these experiments. At sufficiently high applied field strength (and therefore Hall parameter), the measured laser propagation speed through the targets increases in the measurements, consistent with reduced perpendicular electron thermal transport; this reduces the coupled energy to the target once the laser burns through the gas pipe. The results compare well with a 1D analytic propagation model for inverse Bremsstrahlung absorption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strongly magnetizing a plasma adds a range of waves that do not exist in unmagnetized plasmas and enlarges the laser-plasma interaction (LPI) landscape. In this paper, we use particle-in-cell simulations to investigate strongly magnetized LPI in one dimension under conditions relevant for magneto-inertial fusion experiments, focusing on a regime where the electron-cyclotron frequency is greater than the plasma frequency and the magnetic field is at an oblique angle with respect to the wave vectors. We show that when electron-cyclotron-like hybrid wave frequency is about half the laser frequency, the laser light resonantly decays to magnetized plasma waves via primary and secondary instabilities with large growth rates. These distinct magnetic-field-controlled instabilities, which we collectively call two-magnon decays, are analogous to two-plasmon decays in unmagnetized plasmas. Since additional phase mixing mechanisms are introduced by the oblique magnetic field, collisionless damping of large-amplitude magnetized waves substantially broadens the electron distribution function, especially along the direction of the magnetic field. During this process, energy is transferred efficiently from the laser to plasma waves and then to electrons, leading to a large overall absorptivity when strong resonances are present. The enhanced laser energy absorption may explain hotter-than-expected temperatures observed in magnetized laser implosion experiments and may also be exploited to develop more efficient laser-driven x-ray sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents a study on laser wakefield electron acceleration in the self-modulated regime (SM-LWFA) using 50-fs laser pulses with energy on the mJ scale, at λ = 0.8 µm, impinging on a thin H2 gas jet. Particle-in-cell simulations were performed using laser peak powers ranging from sub-terawatt to a few terawatts and plasma densities varying from the relativistic self-focusing threshold up to values close to the critical density. The differences in the obtained acceleration processes are discussed. Results show that bunched electron beams with full charge on the nC scale and kinetic energy in the MeV range can be produced and configurations with peak density in the range 0.5–5 × 1020 atoms/cm3 generate electrons with maximum energies. In this range, some simulations generated quasimonoenergetic bunches with ∼0.5% of the total accelerated charge and we show that the beam characteristics, process dynamics, and operational parameters are close to those expected for the blowout regime. The configurations that led to quasimonoenergetic bunches from the sub-TW SM-LWFA regime allow the use of laser systems with repetition rates in the kHz range, which can be beneficial for practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiments using a single 527 nm wavelength beam interacting with sub- and supercritical density SiO2 and Ta2O5 foams examined laser propagation and backscatter from laser–plasma instabilities such as Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS). Two densities of each material were examined, and multiple diagnostics were used to characterize the propagation and backscatter. For 5 mg/cc SiO2 (ne/nc = 0.375), the laser propagation distance was well approximated by treating the foam as a gas. However, for the 2 mg/cc SiO2 foam (ne/nc = 0.15), the same model over-predicts the propagation distance by ∼40%. Existing analytical theories on propagation through subcritical foams were able to account for this difference. The laser heat wave propagated ∼1/2 as far in Ta2O5 than SiO2 foams with similar electron density. We showed that this difference is due to the increased radiation losses in the higher Z foam. The fraction of backscattered light scales linearly with incident laser intensity for the range of intensities examined. Ta2O5 foams had significantly lower levels of backscatter (1–3%) than the SiO2 (4–8%), which is consistent with estimates of large Landau damping due to the presence of the oxygen atoms. The measured fraction of SBS backscattered laser energy for a 2 mg/cc SiO2 foam shot was ∼4 times lower than predicted by simulations assuming a gas-like foam. We found that we needed to assume increased ion heating such that Ti/Te ∼ 1.2–1.5 in the plasma to agree with the measured SBS reflectivity. Analytical models of laser-heated foams predict preferential heating of the ions as has been observed in previous experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimizing the performance of the Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) platform on the Z pulsed power facility requires coupling greater than 2 kJ of preheat energy to an underdense fuel in the presence of an applied axial magnetic field ranging from 10 to 30 T. Achieving the suggested optimal preheat energies has not been experimentally achieved so far. In this work, we explore the preheat design space for cryogenically cooled MagLIF targets, which represent a viable candidate for increasing preheat energies. Using 2D and 3D HYDRA MHD simulations, we first discuss the various physical effects that occur during laser preheat, such as laser energy deposition, self-focusing, and filamentation. After identifying the changes that different phase plates, gas-fill densities, and magnetic fields bring to the aforementioned physical effects, we, then, consider higher laser energies that are achievable with modest upgrades to the Z Beamlet laser. Finally, with a 6.0-kJ upgraded laser, 3D calculations suggest that it is possible to deliver 4.25 kJ into the MagLIF fuel, resulting in an expected deuterium neutron yield of Y DD ≃ 1.5 × 10 14 , or roughly 50 kJ of DT equivalent yield, at 20-MA current drive. This represents a 10-fold increase in the currently achieved yields for MagLIF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of the subwavelength nanowire target on the enhanced laser absorption, heating of electrons, and acceleration and control of energetic ions are investigated by using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Compared with the flat target, the conversion efficiency and acceleration of target normal sheath acceleration can be improved remarkably. In the condition considered in this paper, the conversion efficiency from the laser to electrons can be increased by about four times (14.74% to 65.78%), and the cutoff energy of electrons can be raised by 1.5 times. Furthermore, the cutoff energies of both protons and carbon ions are increased by almost two times. The dependence of this effect for different nanowire widths is discussed by numerical simulations. It is found that the efficiency from the laser to electrons reaches the highest value when the nanowire width is d = 0.2 μ m. The optimum width for C6+ ions is d = 0.3 μ m , while d = 0.8 μ m is better for proton acceleration. Thus, the laser absorption, electron heating, and ion acceleration could be controlled by selecting the width of subwavelength nanowires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quasi-monoenergetic electron bunches with energies peaked in 10–20 MeV are generated from laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) by focusing few-TW laser pulses onto a sub-mm gas jet of dense nitrogen. A 152-μm diameter orifice is used to produce transient (≤20 ms), free-flow nitrogen jets, while the plasma electrons with a 860-μm wide Gaussian density profile and a density up to ∼2.8 × 1019 cm−3 enable self-focusing effect and self-modulation instability to develop on the pump pulse, resulting in a high intensity to drive the LWFA. Meanwhile, this Gaussian nitrogen plasma facilitates ionization-induced injection and density down-ramp injection throughout the acceleration process and consequently improves the energy and charge stabilities of output electrons. When 40-fs, 3.2-TW, 810-nm pump pulses are applied, output electrons with a peak energy ∼11 MeV and a charge ∼20 pC are routinely generated with ≤20% energy and charge stabilities, ∼20 mrad divergence, and ∼10 mrad pointing variation. A large electron energy spread is attributed to the dominant mechanisms of ionization and down-ramp injections. This scheme represents a viable approach for implementing a high-repetition-rate LWFA, from which stable tens-of-MeV electrons can be generated with less than 150 mJ of on-target laser energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiments on imploding an Al capsule in a Au rugby hohlraum with up to a 1.5 MJ laser drive were performed on the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The capsule diameter was 3.0 mm with ∼1 MJ drive and 3.4 mm with ∼1.5 MJ drive. Effective symmetry tuning by modifying the rugby hohlraum shape was demonstrated, and good shell symmetry was achieved for 3.4 mm capsules at a convergence of ∼10. The nuclear bang time and the shell velocity from simulations agree with experimental data, indicating ∼500 kJ coupling with 1.5 MJ drive or ∼30% efficiency. The peak velocity reached above 300 km/s for a 120 μm-thick Al capsule. The laser backscatter inside the low-gas-filled rugby hohlraum was very low (<4%) at both scales. The high energy coupling allows implosion designs with increased adiabat, which, in turn, increases the tolerance to detrimental effects of instabilities and asymmetries. These encouraging experimental results open new opportunities for both the mainline single-shell scheme and the double-shell design toward ignition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing petawatt class laser beams to a variety of spot sizes for different applications is expensive in cost, labor, and space. In this paper, we propose a plasma lens to flexibly resize the laser beam by utilizing the self-focusing effect of laser in plasmas. Using a fixed conventional focusing system to focus the laser a short distance in front of the plasma, we can adjust the effective laser beam waist within a certain range, with the plasma lens acting as an adjustable eyepiece in a telescope. Such a setup is a powerful tool for laser wakefield accelerator experiments in state-of-the-art petawatt laser projects and allows for scanning focal spot parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using a thin, high-density gas cell, subterawatt laser wakefield acceleration (sub-TW LWFA) of electrons can be driven by few tens of megajoule pulses from diode-pumped lasers operated at high repetition rates. When a 0.5-TW, 1030-nm pulse interacts with a dense plasma, the self-focusing effect and the self-modulation instability are induced to enhance the pulse intensity to a level capable of exciting plasma bubbles. Through particle-in-cell simulations, this study investigates the sub-TW LWFA in which a H2-N2 mixture is applied for the gas target; in this fashion, the nitrogen doping ratio ρN can be varied to improve the output energy and the charge of accelerated electrons with the addition of ionization-induced injection. The results show that the acceleration efficiency is limited when using a pure hydrogen target, since the self-injection of electrons rarely occurs in the first plasma bubble having the highest accelerating field. By doping the hydrogen target with nitrogen, free electrons generated when the pulse peak ionizes the N 5 + and N 6 + ions can be injected into the first bubble. The optimal performance of sub-TW LWFA can be acquired with a nitrogen doping ratio between ρN = 1% and 3%, from which electrons can be produced with a maximum energy of > 40 MeV and a total charge ∼6 pC for the high-energy component (>20 MeV). Using a relatively high doping ratio, ρ N ≥ 5% will significantly degrade the properties of the output electrons, primarily because of the manifest ionization defocusing encountered by the driving pulse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental challenge associated with measuring Thomson scattering comes from the small scattering cross section associated with the interaction. To improve photon statistics, a powerful Thomson-scattering probe laser is required. Ponderomotive self-focusing limits the maximum power in the Thomson-scattering probe and was shown to limit the maximum achievable Thomson-scattering signal-to-noise ratio. Operating the laser at powers above the self-focusing critical power was shown to cause beam degradation, which reduced the amount of collected Thomson-scattered light. Using a phase plate was shown to improve laser beam propagation and consequently improve the signal-to-noise ratio in the measured spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasmas may be used as gain media for amplifying intense lasers, and external magnetic fields may be applied to improve the performance. For midinfrared lasers, the requisite magnetic field is on the megagauss scale, which can already be provided by current technologies. Designing the laser amplifier requires knowing the magnetized three-wave coupling coefficient, which is mapped out systematically in this paper. By numerically evaluating its formula, we demonstrate how the coupling coefficient depends on the angle of wave propagation, laser polarization, magnetic field strength, plasma temperature, and plasma density in the backscattering geometry. Since the mediation is now provided by magnetized plasma waves, the coupling can differ significantly from unmagnetized Raman and Brillouin scatterings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an experimental demonstration of the efficient acceleration of electrons beyond 60 MeV using micro-channel plasma targets. We employed a high-contrast, 2.5 J, 32 fs short pulse laser interacting with a 5 μm inner diameter, 300 μm long micro-channel plasma target. The micro-channel was aligned to be collinear with the incident laser pulse, confining the majority of the laser energy within the channel. The measured electron spectrum showed a large increase in the cut-off energy and slope temperature when compared to that from a 2 μm flat Copper target, with the cutoff energy more than doubled and the total energy in electrons >5 MeV enhanced by over 10 times. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations confirm efficient direct laser acceleration enabled by the novel structure as the dominant acceleration mechanism for the high energy electrons. The simulations further reveal the guiding effect of the channel that successfully explains preferential acceleration on the laser/channel axis observed in experiments. Finally, systematic simulations provide scalings for the energy and charge of the electron pulses. Our results show that the micro-channel plasma target is a promising electron source for applications such as ion acceleration, Bremsstrahlung X-ray radiation, and THZ generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A preliminary numerical experiment is conducted for laboratory experiments on the generation of magnetized collisionless shocks with high-power lasers by using one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation. The present study deals with the interaction between a moving aluminum plasma and a nitrogen plasma at rest. In the numerical experiment, the nitrogen plasma is unmagnetized or magnetized by a weak external magnetic field. Since the previous study suggested the generation of a spontaneous magnetic field in the piston (aluminum) plasma due to the Biermann battery, the effect of the magnetic field is of interest. Sharp jumps of the electron density and magnetic field are observed around the interface between the two plasmas as long as one of the two plasmas is magnetized, which indicates the formation of tangential electron-magneto-hydro-dynamic discontinuity. When the aluminum plasma is magnetized, strong compression of both the density and the magnetic field takes place in the pure aluminum plasma during the gyration of nitrogen ions in the aluminum plasma region. The formation of a shock downstream is obtained from the shock jump condition. The results suggest that the spontaneous magnetic field in the piston (aluminum) plasma plays an essential role in the formation of a perpendicular collisionless shock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser-driven plasma density gratings in underdense plasma are shown to act as photonic crystals for high power lasers. The gratings are created by counterpropagating laser beams that trap electrons, followed by ballistic ion motion. This leads to strong periodic plasma density modulations with a lifetime on the order of picoseconds. The grating structure is interpreted as a plasma photonic crystal time-dependent property, e.g., the photonic band gap width. In Maxwell-Vlasov and particle-in-cell simulations it is demonstrated that the photonic crystals may act as a frequency filter and mirror for ultra-short high-power laser pulses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An electron irradiated by a linearly polarized relativistic intensity laser pulse in a cylindrical plasma channel can gain significant energy from the pulse. The laser electric and magnetic fields drive electron oscillations in a plane making it natural to expect the electron trajectory to be flat. We show that strong modulations of the relativistic c-factor associated with the energy enhancement cause the free oscillations perpendicular to the plane of the driven motion to become unstable. As a consequence, out of plane displacements grow to become comparable to the amplitude of the driven oscillations and the electron trajectory becomes essentially three-dimensional, even if at an early stage of the acceleration it was flat. The development of the instability profoundly affects the x-ray emission, causing considerable divergence of the radiation perpendicular to the plane of the driven oscillations, while also reducing the overall emitted energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ionization-induced electron injection was investigated experimentally by focusing a driving laser pulse with a maximum normalized potential of 1.2 at different positions along the plasma density profile inside a gas cell, filled with a gas mixture composed of 99%H2 þ 1%N2. Changing the laser focus position relative to the gas cell entrance controls the accelerated electron bunch properties, such as the spectrum width, maximum energy, and accelerated charge. Simulations performed using the 3D particle-in-cell code WARP with a realistic density profile give results that are in good agreement with the experimental ones. The interest of this regime for optimizing the bunch charge in a selected energy window is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terahertz (THz) radiation can be produced from a laser wakefield driven in underdense plasmas in the presence of a transverse DC magnetic field. It is shown that the radiation usually contains a component at the electron plasma frequency and its harmonics when the wakefield is excited at high amplitudes. In the highly nonlinear bubble/blowout regime, the radiation contains a smooth component peaked at the reduced electron plasma frequency and an irregular spectrum extending to tens of the electron plasma frequency. The latter is due to the broken-wave structure behind the bubble. A theoretical model is presented and validated via two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The measurement of such THz emission may provide a diagnostic of the laser wakefield structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-generated magnetic fields produced in laser plasmas at moderate laser intensities have been measured using a three-channel polaro-interferometer. The main elements of this device are two birefringent calcite wedges placed between two crossed polarizers. Using this device, the spatial profiles of (a) the rotation angle (polarometry), (b) the electron density (interferometry), and (c) the transmitted probe beam intensity (shadowgraphy) are recorded simultaneously using a digital camera with a large format CCD in a single laser shot. Magnetic fields of 2-4 MG had been estimated in aluminum plasma at laser intensities ∼1013 W/cm2. It is also possible to use this device in other configurations to get time resolved information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of new laser systems at the 10 Petawatt range will push laser wakefield accelerators to novel regimes, for which theoretical scalings predict the possibility to accelerate electron bunches up to tens of GeVs in meter-scale plasmas. Numerical simulations will play a crucial role in testing, probing, and optimizing the physical parameters and the setup of future experiments. Fully kinetic simulations are computationally very demanding, pushing the limits of today’s supercomputers. In this paper, the recent developments in the OSIRIS framework [R. A. Fonseca et al., Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 2331, 342 (2002)] are described, in particular the boosted frame scheme, which leads to a dramatic change in the computational resources required to model laser wakefield accelerators. Results from one-to-one modeling of the next generation of laser systems are discussed, including the confirmation of electron bunch acceleration to the energy frontier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiments conducted using a 200 TW 60 fs laser have demonstrated up to 720 MeV electrons in the self-guided laser wakefield regime using pure helium gas jet targets. The self-trapped charge in a helium plasma was shown to fall off with decreasing electron density with a threshold at 2.5×1018 cm-3, below which no charge is measured above 100 MeV. Self-guiding, however, is shown to continue below this density limitation over distances of 14 mm with an exit spot size of 25 μm. Simulations show that injection of electrons at these densities can be assisted through ionization induced trapping in a mix of helium with 3% oxygen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser wakefield acceleration of electrons well beyond 1 GeV and optical guiding of ultraintense laser pulses of peak powers up to 160 TW over a 4-cm long ablative capillary discharge plasma channel were experimentally demonstrated. Electron beams, with energies up to 1.8 GeV, were generated by using the 130 TW, 55 fs driving laser pulses. A comparison of oxygen-containing acrylic resin (C:O:H = 4:2:7) capillary and no oxygen-containing polyethylene (C:O:H = 1:0:2) capillary measurements suggests that the injection of electron into the laser wakefield is assisted by the ionization of oxygen K-shell electrons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In preparation for the upcoming experiments on the Titan laser at the Jupiter Laser Facility, a new Thomson scattering system has been designed and implemented. This system allows electron temperature and density measurements in a high-density regime (ne>1021 cm-3). A 263 nm probe has been demonstrated to produce a total energy of 15 J at 4ω(263 nm) in a 1 ns square pulse with a focal spot size of 100 μm. This probe has been used for imaging Thomson scattering of the ion feature. The goal of this study is to investigate the heating of a preformed plasma by a short-pulse heater beam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generation of highly collimated (θdiv ∼10 mrad), quasi-monoenergetic electron beam with peak energy 12 MeV and charge ∼50 pC has been experimentally demonstrated from self-guided laser wake-field acceleration (LWFA) in a plasma plume produced by laser ablation of solid nylon (C12H22N2O2)n target. A 7 TW, 45 fs Ti:sapphire laser system was used for LWFA, and the plasma plume forming pulse was derived from the Nd:YAG pump laser of the same system. The results show that a reproducible, high quality electron beam could be produced from this scheme which is simple, low cost and has the capability for high repetition rate operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]