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At the Weizmann Institute of Science, a new high-power-laser laboratory has been established that is dedicated to the fundamental aspects of laser–matter interaction in the relativistic regime and aimed at developing compact laser-plasma accelerators for delivering high-brightness beams of electrons, ions, and x rays. The HIGGINS laser system delivers two independent 100 TW beams and an additional probe beam, and this paper describes its commissioning and presents the very first results for particle and radiation beam delivery.

Electron beam quality in accelerators is crucial for light source application. Here the authors demonstrate beam conditioning of laser plasma electrons thanks to a specific transport line enabling the control of divergence, energy, steering and dispersion and the application to observe undulator radiation.

Summary: Case report of a 51 year old man involved in a motor vehicle accident presenting with multiple thoracic wall injury, including bilateral first rib fractures. He slowly developed a right sided Horner's syndrome due to a right paravertebral haematoma. The initial imaging did not display any carotid injury, however the developing right paravertebral haematoma was not initially reported. We review the anatomy and pathophysiology of this well-known but rare condition to show how first rib fractures should raise suspicion of Horner's syndrome irrespective of the presence or absence of any underlying blunt carotid injury. Keywords: Trauma, First rib fracture, Horner's syndrome, Blunt carotid injury

A new scheme for a laser-driven proton accelerator based on a sharply tailored near-critical-density plasma target is proposed. The designed plasma profile allows for the laser channeling of the dense plasma, which triggers a two-stage acceleration of protons—first accelerated by the laser acting as a snowplow in plasma, and then by the collisionless shock launched from the sharp density downramp. Thanks to laser channeling in the near-critical plasma, the formed shock is radially small and collimated. This allows it to generate a significant space-charge field, which acts as a monochromator, defocusing the lower energy protons while the highest ones remain collimated. Our theoretical and numerical analysis demonstrates production of high-energy proton beams with few tens of percent energy spread, few degrees divergence angle and charge up to few nC. With a PW-class ultrashort laser this scheme predicts the generation of such high quality proton beams with energies up to several hundreds of MeV.

The original version of this Article contained an error in the last sentence of the first paragraph of the Introduction and incorrectly read ‘A proper electron beam control is one of the main challenges towards the Graal of developing a compact alternative of X-ray free-electron lasers by coupling LWFA gigaelectron-volts per centimetre acceleration gradient with undulators in the amplification regime in equation 11, nx(n-β) x β: n the two times and beta the two times should be bold since they are vectorsin Eq. 12, β should be bold as well.’ The correct version is ‘A proper electron beam control is one of the main challenges towards the Graal of developing a compact alternative of X-ray free-electron lasers by coupling LWFA gigaelectron-volts per centimetre acceleration gradient with undulators in the amplification regime.’This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.

The study of radiation biology on laser-based accelerators is most interesting due to the unique irradiation conditions they can produce, in terms of peak current and duration of the irradiation. In this paper we present the implementation of a beam transport system to transport and shape the proton beam generated by laser-target interaction for in vitro irradiation of biological samples. A set of four permanent magnet quadrupoles is used to transport and focus the beam, efficiently shaping the spectrum and providing a large and relatively uniform irradiation surface. Real time, absolutely calibrated, dosimetry is installed on the beam line, to enable shot-to-shot control of dose deposition in the irradiated volume. Preliminary results of cell sample irradiation are presented to validate the robustness of the full system.

While large efforts have been devoted to improving the quality of electron beams from laser plasma accelerators, often to the detriment of the charge, many applications do not require very high quality but high-charge beams. Despite this need, the acceleration of largely charged beams has been barely studied. Here we explore both experimentally and numerically the physics of highly loaded wakefield acceleration. We find that the shape of the electron spectra is strikingly independent of the laser energy, due to the emergence of a saturation effect induced by beamloading. A transition from quasi-Maxwellian spectra at high plasma densities to flatter spectra at lower densities is also found, which is shown to be produced by the wakefield driven by the electron bunch itself after the laser depletion.

The scheme of the x-ray free electron laser based on the optical undulator created by two overlapped transverse laser beams is analyzed. A kinetic theoretical description and an ad hoc numerical model are developed to account for the finite energy spread, angular divergence, and the spectral properties of the electron beam in the optical lattice. The theoretical findings are compared to the results of the one- and three-dimensional numerical modeling with the spectral free electron laser code plares.

Thanks to their compactness and unique properties, laser-wakefield accelerators are currently considered for several innovative applications. However, many of these applications—and especially those that require beam transport—are hindered by the large divergence of laser-accelerated beams. Here we propose a collimating concept that relies on the strong radial electric field of the laser-wakefield to reduce this divergence. This concept utilizes an additional gas jet, placed after the laser-wakefield accelerator. When the laser pulse propagates through this additional gas jet, it drives a wakefield which can refocus the trailing electron bunch. Particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate that this approach can reduce the divergence by at least a factor of 3 for realistic electron bunches.

Transverse emittance is a crucial feature of laser-wakefield accelerators, yet accurately reproducing its value in numerical simulations remains challenging. It is shown here that, when the charge of the bunch exceeds a few tens of picocoulombs, particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations erroneously overestimate the emittance. This is mostly due the interaction of spurious Cherenkov radiation with the bunch, which leads to a steady growth of emittance during the simulation. A new computational scheme is proposed, which is free of spurious Cherenkov radiation. It can be easily implemented in existing PIC codes and leads to a substantial reduction of the emittance growth.

Ultra-intense lasers produce and manipulate plasmas, allowing to locally generate extremely high static and electromagnetic fields. This study presents a concept of an ultra-intense optical tweezer, where two counter-propagating circularly polarized intense lasers of different frequencies collide on a nano-foil. Interfering inside the foil, lasers produce a beat wave, which traps and moves plasma electrons as a thin sheet with an optically controlled velocity. The electron displacement creates a plasma micro-capacitor with an extremely strong electrostatic field, that efficiently generates narrow-energy-spread ion beams from the multi-species targets, e.g. protons from the hydrocarbon foils. The proposed ion accelerator concept is explored theoretically and demonstrated numerically with the multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations.

We investigate the electron heating induced by a relativistic-intensity laser pulse propagating through a near-critical plasma. Using particle-in-cell simulations, we show that a specific interaction regime sets in when, due to the energy depletion caused by the plasma wakefield, the laser front profile has steepened to the point of having a length scale close to the laser wavelength. Wave breaking and phase mixing have then occurred, giving rise to a relativistically hot electron population following the laser pulse. This hot electron flow is dense enough to neutralize the cold bulk electrons during their backward acceleration by the wakefield. This neutralization mechanism delays, but does not prevent the breaking of the wakefield: the resulting phase mixing converts the large kinetic energy of the backward-flowing electrons into thermal energy greatly exceeding the conventional ponderomotive scaling at laser intensities $\gt {10}^{21}\,{{\rm{W}}\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$ and gas densities around 10% of the critical density. We develop a semi-numerical model, based on the Akhiezer–Polovin equations, which correctly reproduces the particle-in-cell-predicted electron thermal energies over a broad parameter range. Given this good agreement, we propose a criterion for full laser absorption that includes field-induced ionization. Finally, we show that our predictions still hold in a two-dimensional geometry using a realistic gas profile.

Free-electron lasers (FELs) are a unique source of light, particularly in the x-ray domain. After the success of FELs based on conventional acceleration using radio-frequency cavities, an important challenge is the development of FELs based on electron bunching accelerated by a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA). However, the present LWFA electron bunch properties do not permit use directly for a significant FEL amplification. It is known that longitudinal decompression of electron beams delivered by state-of-the-art LWFA eases the FEL process. We propose here a second order transverse beam manipulation turning the large inherent transverse chromatic emittances of LWFA beams into direct FEL gain advantage. Numerical simulations are presented showing that this beam manipulation can further enhance by orders of magnitude the peak power of the radiation.

We report on the ion acceleration mechanisms that occur during the interaction of an intense and ultrashort laser pulse ( $I\lambda^{2}>10^{18} \text{W}\,\text{cm}^{-2}\,\mu \text{m}^{2}$ ) with an underdense helium plasma produced from an ionized gas jet target. In this unexplored regime, where the laser pulse duration is comparable to the inverse of the electron plasma frequency ${{\omega }_{pe}}$ , reproducible non-thermal ion bunches have been measured in the radial direction. The two He ion charge states present energy distributions with cutoff energies between 150 and 200 keV, and a striking energy gap around 50 keV appearing consistently for all the shots in a given density range. Fully electromagnetic particle-in-cell simulations explain the experimental behaviors. The acceleration results from a combination of target normal sheath acceleration and Coulomb explosion of a filament formed around the laser pulse propagation axis.

We present a bright and coherent soft x-ray source based on high harmonic generation delivering up to 10 ^10 photons per second centered at 120 eV within an 80 eV bandwidth. The source profits from fully phase-matched harmonic generation in an unmodulated hollow waveguide. Under these conditions, the resulting high harmonic spectrum is shown to be flat-top up to the cutoff photon energy and in line with the theoretical single-atom response. The source is characterized in view of seeding a free-electron laser and is shown to overcome the free-electron laser noise floor for wavelengths as short as 8.9 nm. This opens the perspective toward direct high harmonic seeding of a free-electron laser at soft x-ray wavelengths.

Laser wakefield acceleration experiments were performed using a 30 fs, 1 J laser pulse interacting with an underdense helium plasma. Temporally resolved polarimetry measurements demonstrate the presence of magnetic fields at the ionization front within the plasma which had a peak strength of ∼2.8 MG and a radial extent of approximately 200 μ m. The field was seen to vary in strength over picosecond time-scales. The field is likely generated by return current generated in the plasma at the interface between plasma and neutral gas and which is caused by hot electrons produced in the wakefield during formation of a plasma ‘bubble’ and prior to the time of wave-breaking (beam injection). These effects are confirmed using particle-in-cell simulations. Such measurements can be useful as a diagnostic of bubble formation in laser wakefield accelerators.