Influence of realistic parameters on state-of-the-art LWFA experiments

Abstract

We examine the influence of non-ideal plasma-density and non-Gaussian transverse laser-intensity profiles in the laser wakefield accelerator analytically and numerically. We find that the characteristic amplitude and scale length of longitudinal density fluctuations impacts on the final energies achieved by electron bunches. Conditions that minimize the role of the longitudinal plasma density fluctuations are found. The influence of higher order Laguerre-Gaussian laser pulses is also investigated. We find that higher order laser modes typically lead to lower energy gains. Certain combinations of higher order modes may, however, lead to higher electron energy gains.

16 pages, 6 figures; Accepted for publication in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

References in corpus (4)

• Generating multi-GeV electron bunches using single stage laser wakefield acceleration in a 3D nonlinear regime
• High energy particle colliders: past 20 years, next 20 years and beyond
• One-to-one direct modeling of experiments and astrophysical scenarios: pushing the envelope on kinetic plasma simulations
• One-to-one full scale simulations of laser wakefield acceleration using QuickPIC

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