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Controlled ionization-induced injection by tailoring the gas-density profile in laser wakefield acceleration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2012

MING ZENG ,
NASR A. M. HAFZ ,
KAZUHISA NAKAJIMA ,
LI-MING CHEN ,
WEI LU ,
WARREN B. MORI ,
ZHENG-MING SHENG  and
JIE ZHANG
MING ZENG
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China (zmsheng@sjtu.edu.cn)
NASR A. M. HAFZ
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China (zmsheng@sjtu.edu.cn)
KAZUHISA NAKAJIMA
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China (zmsheng@sjtu.edu.cn) High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, 1-1 Oho, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0081, Japan Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, CAS, Shanghai 201800, China
LI-MING CHEN
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China (zmsheng@sjtu.edu.cn) Beijing National Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, CAS, Beijing 100190, China
WEI LU
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
WARREN B. MORI
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical Engineering, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
ZHENG-MING SHENG
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China (zmsheng@sjtu.edu.cn) Beijing National Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, CAS, Beijing 100190, China
JIE ZHANG
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China (zmsheng@sjtu.edu.cn) Beijing National Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, CAS, Beijing 100190, China
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Abstract

Ionization-induced injection into a laser-driven wakefield is studied using 2½D OSIRIS simulations. A laser propagates into a gas mixture of 99.5% helium and 0.5% nitrogen with gas density of each rising linearly from 0 to a peak, after which these remain constant. Simulations show that the process can be controlled by varying the scale length of an up-ramp, the laser intensity, and the maximum plasma density. The injection process is controlled by the bubble radius decreasing as laser propagates up the density gradient and laser self-focusing in the flat-top region. A beam with a central energy of 350 MeV and an energy spread (FWHM) of 1.62% was obtained for an up-ramp length of 135 μm, a normalized vector potential of 2, and a density of 7 × 1018cm−3 (assuming a 0.8 μm wavelength laser).

Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 78 , Special Issue 4: Progress in Laser Acceleration of Particles , August 2012 , pp. 363 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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