Formation of plasma channels in the interaction of a nanosecond laser pulse at moderate intensities with helium gas jets

Trapping, compression, and acceleration of an electron bunch in the nonlinear laser wakefield

A scheme of laser wakefield acceleration, when a relatively rare and long bunch of nonrelativistic or weakly relativistic electrons is initially in front of the laser pulse, is suggested and considered. The motion of test electrons is studied both in the one-dimensional (1D) case (1D wakefield) and in the case of three-dimensional laser wakefield excited in a plasma channel. It is shown that for definite parameters of the problem the bunch can be trapped, effectively compressed both in longitudinal and transverse directions, and accelerated to ultra-relativistic energies in the region of first accelerating maximum of the wakefield. The accelerated bunch has sizes much less than the plasma wavelength and relatively small energy spread.

Simulation of laser wakefield acceleration of an ultrashort electron bunch

The dynamics of the acceleration of a short electron bunch in a strong plasma wave excited by a laser pulse in a plasma channel is studied both analytically and numerically in slab geometry. In our simulations, a fully nonlinear, relativistic hydrodynamic description for the plasma wave is combined with particle-in-cell methods for the description of the bunch. Collective self-interactions within the bunch are fully taken into account. The existence of adiabatic invariants of motion is shown to have important implications for the final beam quality. Similar to the one-dimensional case, the natural evolution of the bunch is shown to lead, under proper initial conditions, to a minimum in the relative energy spread.

Experimental evidence of the effect of heat flux on thomson scattering off ion acoustic waves

Thomson self-scattering measurements are performed in a preionized helium gas jet plasma at different locations along the laser propagation direction. A systematic and important variation of the intensity ratio between the blue and the red ion spectral components is observed, depending on whether the location of the probed region is in front of or behind the focal plane. A simple theoretical calculation of Thomson scattering shows that this behavior can be qualitatively understood in terms of a deformation of the electron distribution function due to the return current correlated with the classical thermal heat flux.