Laser-Particle Collider for Multi-GeV Photon Production.

As an alternative to Compton backscattering and bremsstrahlung, the process of colliding high-energy electron beams with strong laser fields can more efficiently provide both a cleaner and brighter source of photons in the multi-GeV range for fundamental studies in nuclear and quark-gluon physics. In order to favor the emission of high-energy quanta and minimize their decay into electron-positron pairs, the fields must not only be sufficiently strong, but also well localized. We here examine these aspects and develop the concept of a laser-particle collider tailored for high-energy photon generation. We show that the use of multiple colliding laser pulses with 0.4 PW of total power is capable of converting more than 18% of multi-GeV electrons passing through the high-field region into photons, each of which carries more than half of the electron initial energy.

Petawatt Laser Guiding and Electron Beam Acceleration to 8 GeV in a Laser-Heated Capillary Discharge Waveguide.

Guiding of relativistically intense laser pulses with peak power of 0.85 PW over 15 diffraction lengths was demonstrated by increasing the focusing strength of a capillary discharge waveguide using laser inverse bremsstrahlung heating. This allowed for the production of electron beams with quasimonoenergetic peaks up to 7.8 GeV, double the energy that was previously demonstrated. Charge was 5 pC at 7.8 GeV and up to 62 pC in 6 GeV peaks, and typical beam divergence was 0.2 mrad.

Depletion of Intense Fields.

The interaction of charged particles and photons with intense electromagnetic fields gives rise to multiphoton Compton and Breit-Wheeler processes. These are usually described in the framework of the external field approximation, where the electromagnetic field is assumed to have infinite energy. However, the multiphoton nature of these processes implies the absorption of a significant number of photons, which scales as the external field amplitude cubed. As a result, the interaction of a highly charged electron bunch with an intense laser pulse can lead to significant depletion of the laser pulse energy, thus rendering the external field approximation invalid. We provide relevant estimates for this depletion and find it to become important in the interaction between fields of amplitude a_{0}∼10^{3} and electron bunches with charges of the order of 10 nC.

Enhancement of maximum attainable ion energy in the radiation pressure acceleration regime using a guiding structure.

Radiation pressure acceleration is a highly efficient mechanism of laser-driven ion acceleration, with the laser energy almost totally transferrable to the ions in the relativistic regime. There is a fundamental limit on the maximum attainable ion energy, which is determined by the group velocity of the laser. In the case of tightly focused laser pulses, which are utilized to get the highest intensity, another factor limiting the maximum ion energy comes into play, the transverse expansion of the target. Transverse expansion makes the target transparent for radiation, thus reducing the effectiveness of acceleration. Utilization of an external guiding structure for the accelerating laser pulse may provide a way of compensating for the group velocity and transverse expansion effects.

Active Plasma Lensing for Relativistic Laser-Plasma-Accelerated Electron Beams.

Compact, tunable, radially symmetric focusing of electrons is critical to laser-plasma accelerator (LPA) applications. Experiments are presented demonstrating the use of a discharge-capillary active plasma lens to focus 100-MeV-level LPA beams. The lens can provide tunable field gradients in excess of 3000 T/m, enabling cm-scale focal lengths for GeV-level beam energies and allowing LPA-based electron beams and light sources to maintain their compact footprint. For a range of lens strengths, excellent agreement with simulation was obtained.

Multi-GeV electron beams from capillary-discharge-guided subpetawatt laser pulses in the self-trapping regime.

Multi-GeV electron beams with energy up to 4.2 GeV, 6% rms energy spread, 6 pC charge, and 0.3 mrad rms divergence have been produced from a 9-cm-long capillary discharge waveguide with a plasma density of ≈7×10¹7 cm⁻³, powered by laser pulses with peak power up to 0.3 PW. Preformed plasma waveguides allow the use of lower laser power compared to unguided plasma structures to achieve the same electron beam energy. A detailed comparison between experiment and simulation indicates the sensitivity in this regime of the guiding and acceleration in the plasma structure to input intensity, density, and near-field laser mode profile.

Control of energy spread and dark current in proton and ion beams generated in high-contrast laser solid interactions.

By using temporal pulse shaping of high-contrast, short pulse laser interactions with solid density targets at intensities of 2 × 10(21) W cm(-2) at a 45° incident angle, we show that it is possible to reproducibly generate quasimonoenergetic proton and ion energy spectra. The presence of a short pulse prepulse 33 ps prior to the main pulse produced proton spectra with an energy spread between 25% and 60% (ΔE/E) with energy of several MeV, with light ions becoming quasimonoenergetic for 50 nm targets. When the prepulse was removed, the energy spectra was broad. Numerical simulations suggest that expansion of the rear-side contaminant layer allowed for density conditions that prevented the protons from being screened from the sheath field, thus providing a low energy cutoff in the observed spectra normal to the target surface.

Multiple colliding electromagnetic pulses: a way to lower the threshold of e+ e- pair production from vacuum.

The scheme of a simultaneous multiple pulse focusing on one spot naturally arises from the structural features of projected new laser systems, such as the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) and High Power laser Energy Research (HiPER). It is shown that the multiple pulse configuration is beneficial for observing e+ e- pair production from a vacuum under the action of sufficiently strong electromagnetic fields. The field of focused pulses is described using a realistic three-dimensional model based on an exact solution of the Maxwell equations. The e+ e- pair production threshold in terms of electromagnetic field energy can be substantially lowered if, instead of one or even two colliding pulses, multiple pulses are focused on one spot. The multiple pulse interaction geometry gives rise to subwavelength field features in the focal region. These features result in the production of extremely short e+ e- bunches.

Stimulated Raman side scattering in laser wakefield acceleration.

Stimulated Raman side scattering of an ultrashort high power laser pulse is studied in experiments on laser wakefield acceleration. Experiments and simulations reveal that stimulated Raman side scattering occurs at the beginning of the interaction, that it contributes to the evolution of the pulse prior to wakefield formation, and also that it affects the quality of electron beams generated. The relativistic shift of the plasma frequency is measured.

Formation of optical bullets in laser-driven plasma bubble accelerators.

Electron density bubbles--wake structures generated in plasma of density n(e) approximately 10(19) cm(-3) by the light pressure of intense ultrashort laser pulses--are shown to reshape weak copropagating probe pulses into optical "bullets." The bullets are reconstructed using frequency-domain interferometric techniques in order to visualize bubble formation. Bullets are confined in three dimensions to plasma-wavelength size, and exhibit higher intensity, broader spectrum and flatter temporal phase than surrounding probe light, evidence of their compression by the bubble. Bullets observed at 0.8 approximately < n(e) approximately < 1.2x10(19) cm(-3) provide the first observation of bubble formation below the electron capture threshold. At higher n(e), bullets appear with high shot-to-shot stability together with relativistic electrons that vary widely in spectrum, and help relate bubble formation to fast electron generation.

Accelerating monoenergetic protons from ultrathin foils by flat-top laser pulses in the directed-Coulomb-explosion regime.

We consider the effect of laser beam shaping on proton acceleration in the interaction of a tightly focused pulse with ultrathin double-layer solid targets in the regime of directed Coulomb explosion. In this regime, the heavy ions of the front layer are forced by the laser to expand predominantly in the direction of the pulse propagation, forming a moving longitudinal charge separation electric field, thus increasing the effectiveness of acceleration of second-layer protons. The utilization of beam shaping, namely, the use of flat-top beams, leads to more efficient proton acceleration due to the increase of the longitudinal field.

High-efficiency γ-ray flash generation via multiple-laser scattering in ponderomotive potential well.

γ-ray flash generation in near-critical-density target irradiated by four symmetrical colliding laser pulses is numerically investigated. With peak intensities about 10^{23} W/cm^{2}, the laser pulses boost electron energy through direct laser acceleration, while pushing them inward with the ponderomotive force. After backscattering with counterpropagating laser, the accelerated electron is trapped in the electromagnetic standing waves or the ponderomotive potential well created by the coherent overlapping of the laser pulses, and emits γ-ray photons in a multiple-laser-scattering regime, where electrons act as a medium transferring energy from the laser to γ rays in the ponderomotive potential valley.

Single-cycle high-intensity electromagnetic pulse generation in the interaction of a plasma wakefield with regular nonlinear structures.

The interaction of regular nonlinear structures (such as subcycle solitons, electron vortices, and wake Langmuir waves) with a strong wake wave in a collisionless plasma can be exploited in order to produce ultrashort electromagnetic pulses. The electromagnetic field of the nonlinear structure is partially reflected by the electron density modulations of the incident wake wave and a single-cycle high-intensity electromagnetic pulse is formed. Due to the Doppler effect the length of this pulse is much shorter than that of the nonlinear structure. This process is illustrated with two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The considered laser-plasma interaction regimes can be achieved in present day experiments and can be used for plasma diagnostics.

Electron dynamics and γ and e(-)e(+) production by colliding laser pulses.

The dynamics of an electron bunch irradiated by two focused colliding super-intense laser pulses and the resulting γ and e(-)e(+) production are studied. Due to attractors of electron dynamics in a standing wave created by colliding pulses the photon emission and pair production, in general, are more efficient with linearly polarized pulses than with circularly polarized ones. The dependence of the key parameters on the laser intensity and wavelength allows us to identify the conditions for the cascade development and γe(-)e(+) plasma creation.

Damping of electromagnetic waves due to electron-positron pair production.

The problem of the back reaction during the process of electron-positron pair production by a circularly polarized electromagnetic wave propagating in a plasma is investigated. A model based on the relativistic Boltzmann-Vlasov equation with a source term representing the Schwinger formula for the pair creation rate is used. The damping of the wave, the nonlinear up-shift of its frequency due to the plasma density increase, and the effect of the damping on the wave polarization and on the background plasma acceleration are investigated as a function of the wave amplitude.

Attosecond electromagnetic pulse generation due to the interaction of a relativistic soliton with a breaking-wake plasma wave.

During the interaction of a low-frequency relativistic soliton with the electron density modulations of a wake plasma wave, part of the electromagnetic energy of the soliton is reflected in the form of an extremely short and ultraintense electromagnetic pulse. We calculate the spectra of the reflected and of the transmitted electromagnetic pulses analytically. The reflected wave has the form of a single cycle attosecond pulse.

Pair production by a circularly polarized electromagnetic wave in a plasma.

We present the results of the calculation of the electron-positron pair creation probability by a circularly polarized electromagnetic wave during its propagation in underdense collisionless plasmas. The dependence of the probability on the frequency and the amplitude of the pulse is studied in detail.