Effect of the frequency chirp on laser wakefield acceleration

Abstract

The role of laser frequency chirps in the laser wakefield accelerator is examined. We show that in the linear regime, the evolution of the laser pulse length is affected by the frequency chirp, and that positive (negative) chirp compresses (stretches) the laser pulse, thereby increasing (decreasing) the peak vector potential and wakefield amplitude. In the blowout regime, the frequency chirp can be used to fine tune the localized etching rates at the front of the laser. In our simulations, chirped laser pulses can lead to 15% higher self-trapped electrons, and 10% higher peak energies as compare to the transform-limited pulse. Chirps may be used to control the phase velocity of the wake, and to relax the self-guiding conditions at the front of the laser. Our predictions are confirmed by multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations with OSIRIS.

Submitted in NJP, 4 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Generating multi-GeV electron bunches using single stage laser wakefield acceleration in a 3D nonlinear regime
• One-to-one direct modeling of experiments and astrophysical scenarios: pushing the envelope on kinetic plasma simulations
• Magnetic control of particle-injection in plasma based accelerators

Cited by in corpus (6)

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• Electron Beam Chirp Dexterity in Staging Laser Wakefield Acceleration
• Combined tools for Particle-In-Cell simulations performed with transversely asymmetric chirped lasers