Speaker
Description
The generation of meter-scale, low density (≤10^17 cm^(-3)) plasma waveguides [1,2] in long supersonic gas jets has enabled the consistent production of multi-GeV electron beams in laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA), using drive pulses of just a few hundred TW [3,4,5]. The customizability of these waveguides has opened a wide parameter space for LWFA performance since the electron injection and acceleration process depends on properties of the drive pulse and waveguide structure. Our group recently developed a model of beam evolution in a plasma waveguide and its effects on enhancing and suppressing ionization injection [5]. In this poster, we present experimental results demonstrating the effects of waveguide properties on ionization injection and the characteristics of resulting electron beams from 30cm self-waveguided LWFAs. We further show that, under optimum conditions, stable production of >100 pC, multi-GeV beams can be achieved.
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DE-SC0015516, LaserNetUS
DE-SC0019076/FWP#SCW1668, and DE-SC0011375), the National Science Foundation (PHY2010511), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the Muons for Science and Security Program. E. Rockafellow is supported by a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (DGE 1840340).
References:
[1] L. Feder et al., Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 043173 (2020).
[2] J.E. Shrock et al., Phys. Plasmas 29, 073101 (2022).
[3] B. Miao et al., Phys. Rev. X. 12, 031038 (2022).
[4] B. Miao et al., Physics Today 76(8), 54-55 (2023).
[5] J.E. Shrock et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., in press (2024).
| Working group | WG1 : Laser-driven plasma wakefield acceleration |
|---|