Self-guided wakefield experiments driven by petawatt class ultra-short laser pulses

Abstract

We investigate the extension of self-injecting laser wakefield experiments to the regime that will be accessible with the next generation of petawatt class ultra-short pulse laser systems. Using linear scalings, current experimental trends and numerical simulations we determine the optimal laser and target parameters, i.e. focusing geometry, plasma density and target length, that are required to increase the electron beam energy (to > 1 GeV) without the use of external guiding structures.

15 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Generating multi-GeV electron bunches using single stage laser wakefield acceleration in a 3D nonlinear regime
• The Effect of Laser Focusing Conditions on Propagation and Monoenergetic Electron Production in Laser Wakefield Accelerators
• Transverse Dynamics and Energy Tuning of Fast Electrons Generated in Sub-Relativistic Intensity Laser Pulse Interaction with Plasmas