Colliding Pulse Injection Experiments In Non Collinear Geometryfor Controlled Laser Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Of Electrons

An optical injection scheme for a laser-plasma basedaccelerator which employs a non-collinear counter-propagating laser beamto push background electrons in the focusing and acceleration phase viaponderomotive beat with the trailing part of the wakefield driver pulseis discussed. Preliminary experiments were performed using a drive beamof a_0 = 2.6 and colliding beam of a_1 = 0.8 both focused on the middleof a 200 mu m slit jet backed with 20 bar, which provided ~; 260 mu mlong gas plume. The enhancement in the total charge by the collidingpulse was observed with sharp dependence on the delay time of thecolliding beam. Enhancement of the neutron yield was also measured, whichsuggests a generation of electrons above 10 MeV.

Decoupling injection from acceleration is a key challenge to achieve compact, reliable, tunable laser-plasma accelerators (LPA). In colliding pulse injection the beat between multiple laser pulses can be used to control energy, energy spread, and emittance of the electron beam by injecting electrons in momentum and phase into the accelerating phase of the wake trailing the driver laser pulse. At LBNL, using automated control of spatiotemporal overlap of laser pulses, two-pulse experiments showed stable operation and reproducibility over hours of operation. Arrival time of the colliding beam was scanned, and the measured timing window and density of optimal operation agree with simulations. The accelerator length was mapped by scanning the collision point.

A series of laser wake field accelerator experiments leading to electron energy exceeding 1 GeV are described. Theoretical concepts and experimental methods developed while conducting experiments using the 10 TW Ti:Sapphire laser at UCLA were implemented and transferred successfully to the 100 TW Callisto Laser System at the Jupiter Laser Facility at LLNL. To reach electron energies greater than 1 GeV with current laser systems, it is necessary to inject and trap electrons into the wake and to guide the laser for more than 1 cm of plasma. Using the 10 TW laser, the physics of self-guiding and the limitations in regards to pump depletion over cm-scale plasmas were demonstrated. Furthermore, a novel injection mechanism was explored which allows injection by ionization at conditions necessary for generating electron energies greater than a GeV. The 10 TW results were followed by self-guiding at the 100 TW scale over cm plasma lengths. The energy of the self-injected electrons, at 3 x 1018 cm−3 plasma density, was limited by dephasing to 720 MeV. Implementation of ionization injection allowed extending the acceleration well beyond a centimeter and 1.4 GeV electrons were measured.

An electron injector concept that uses a single injection laser pulse colliding with a pump laser pulse in a plasma is analyzed. The pump pulse generates a large amplitude laser wakefield (plasma wave). The counter propagating injection pulse collides with the pump laser pulse to generate a beat wave with a slow phase velocity. The ponderomotive force of the slow beat wave is responsible for injecting plasma electrons into the wakefield near the back of the pump pulse. Test particle simulations indicate that significant amounts of charge can be trapped and accelerated ((almost equal to) 10 pC). For higher charge, beam loading limits the validity of the simulations. The accelerated bunches are ultrashort ((almost equal to) 1 fs) with good beam quality (relative energy spread of a few percent at a mean energy of (almost equal to) 10 MeV and a normalized rms emittance on the order 0.4 mm.mrad). The effects of interaction angle and polarization are also explored, e.g., efficient trapping can occur for near-collinear geometries. Beat wave injection using a single injection pulse has the advantages of simplicity, ease of experimental implementation, and requires modest laser intensity I (asymptotically equal to) 8.8 x 1017 W/cm2.

We present 2-D simulations of both beam-driven and laser-driven plasma wakefield accelerators, using the object-oriented particle-in-cell code XOOPIC, which is time explicit, fully electromagnetic, and capable of running on massively parallel supercomputers. Simulations of laser-driven wakefields with low ((almost equal to)1016 W/cm2) and high ((almost equal to)1018 W/cm2) peak intensity laser pulses are conducted in slab geometry, showing agreement with theory and fluid simulations. Simulations of the E-157 beam wakefield experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, in which a 30 GeV electron beam passes through 1 m of preionized lithium plasma, are conducted in cylindrical geometry, obtaining good agreement with previous work. We briefly describe some of the more significant modifications of XOOPIC required by this work, and summarize the issues relevant to modeling relativistic electron-neutral collisions in a particle-in-cell code.

In this thesis, the magnetized, relativistic plasma that overlaps the pump laser in Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA) was investigated. The Jeti 40 laser was used to drive the plasma wave and a transverse, few-cycle probe pulse in the visible to near-infrared spectrum was implemented to image the laser-plasma interaction. The recorded shadowgrams were sorted depending on the properties of the accelerated electron bunches, and subsequently stitched together based on the timing delay between the pump and probe beams. The resulting data showed two signatures unique to the relativistic, magnetized plasma near the pump pulse. Firstly, a significant change in the brightness modulation of the shadowgrams, coinciding with the location of the pump pulse, shows a strong dependence on the pump's propagation length and the probe's spectrum and polarization. Secondly, after ~1.5 mm of propagation in the plasma, polarization-dependent diffraction rings appear in front of the plasma wave. A mathematical model using relativistic corrections to the Appleton-Hartree equation was developed to explain these signals. By combining the model with data from 2D Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations using the VSim code, the plasma's birefringent refractive index distribution was investigated. Simulated shadowgrams of a 3D PIC simulation using the EPOCH code were also analyzed with respect to the aforementioned signals. The results of the study present a compelling description of the pump-plasma interaction. The previously unknown signals arise from relativistic, electron-cyclotron motion originating in the 10s of kilotesla strong magnetic fields of the pump pulse. Advantageously, a VIS-NIR probe is resonant with the cyclotron frequencies at the peak of the pump. With further refinement, the measurement of this phenomenon could allow for the non-invasive experimental visualization of the pump laser's spatio-temporal energy distribution and evolution during propagation through the plasma.

In typical chirped pulse amplification (CPA) laser systems, scanning the grating separation in the optical compressor causes the well know generation of linear chirp of frequency vs. time in a laser pulse, as well as a modification of all the higher order phase terms. By setting the compressor angle slightly different from the optimum value to generate the shortest pulse, a typical scan around this value will produce significant changes to the pulse shape. Such pulse shape changes can lead to significant differences in the interaction with plasmas such as used in laser wake-field accelerators. Strong electron yield dependence on laser pulse shape in laser plasma wake-field electron acceleration experiments have been observed in the L'OASIS Lab of LBNL [1]. These experiments show the importance of pulse skewness parameter, S, defined here on the basis of the ratio of the ''head-width-half-max'' (HWHM) and the ''tail-width-halfmax'' (TWHM), respectively.

Acceleration of electrons by laser-driven plasma wake fields is limited by the range over which a laser pulse can maintain its intensity. This distance is typically given by the Rayleigh range for the focused laser beam, usually on the order of 0.1 mm to 1 mm. For practical particle acceleration, interaction distances on the order of centimeters are required. Therefore, some means of guiding high intensity laser pulses is necessary. Light intensities on the order of a few times 1017 W/cm2 are required for laser wakefield acceleration schemes using near IR radiation. Gas densities on the order of or greater than 1017 cm−3 are also needed. Laser-atom interaction studies in this density and intensity regime are generally limited by the concomitant problems in beam propagation introduced by the creation of a plasma. In addition to the interaction distance limit imposed by the Rayleigh range, defocusing of the high intensity laser pulse further limits the peak intensity which can be achieved. To solve the problem of beam propagation limitations in laser-plasma wakefield experiments, two potential methods for creating transient propagation channels in gaseous targets are investigated. The first involves creation of a charge-neutral channel in a gas by an initial laser pulse, which then is ionized by a second, ultrashort, high-intensity pulse to create a waveguide. The second method involves the ionization of a gas column by an ultrashort pulse; a transient waveguide is formed by the subsequent expansion of the heated plasma into the neutral gas.

This work covers several aspects related to Laser WakeField Acceleration (LWFA). A strong and ultrashort laser pulse can generate plasma waves with accelerating gradients up to 100s GV/m, four orders of magnitude higher than a conventional radio frequency linear accelerator. The LWFA electrons have been characterized as an ultra-short and high brilliance source. These remarkable properties lead to a compact accelerator which is of great scientific interest for building a table-top coherent free electron laser as well as a single-shot electron diffraction device. On the other hand, a new application of LWFA is to utilize the high peak current LWFA electron bunch to drive a wakefield efficiently inside a high density underdense plasma. The resulting wakefield quickly decelerates the driver bunch or accelerates a properly designed witness bunch, and therefore the plasma is utilized as a compact beam dump or an afterburner staged after a regular LWFA.