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A summary is given of presentations and discussions in the Laser-Plasma Acceleration Working Group at the 2006 Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop. Presentation highlights include: widespread observation of quasi-monoenergetic electrons; good agreement between measured and simulated beam properties; the first demonstration of laser-plasma acceleration up to 1 GeV; single-shot visualization of laser wakefield structure; new methods for measuring < 100 fs electron bunches; and new methods for “machining” laser-plasma accelerator structures. Discussion of future directions includes: developing a roadmap for laser-plasma acceleration beyond 1 GeV; a debate over injection and guiding; benchmarking simulations with improved wake diagnostics; petawatt laser technology for future laser-plasma accelerators. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current activities (last few years) at different laboratories, towards the development of a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) are reviewed, followed by a more in depth discussion of results obtained at the L’OASIS laboratory of LBNL. Recent results on laser guiding of relativistically intense beams in preformed plasma channels are discussed. The observation of mono-energetic beams in the 100 MeV energy range, produced by a channel guided LWFA at LBNL, is described and compared to results obtained in the unguided case at LOA, RAL and LBNL. Analysis, aided by particle-in-cell simulations, as well as experiments with various plasma lengths and densities, indicate that tailoring the length of the accelerator has a very beneficial impact on the electron energy distribution. Progress on laser triggered injection is reviewed. Results are presented on measurements of bunch duration and emittance of the accelerated electron beams, that indicate the possibility of generating femtosecond duration electron bunches. Future challenges and plans towards the development of a 1 GeV LWFA module are discussed. © 2004 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser-driven plasma-based accelerators are capable of producing ultrashort electron bunches in which the longitudinal size is much smaller than the transverse size. We present theoretical studies of the transport of such electron bunches in vacuum. Space charge forces acting on the bunch are calculated using an ellipsoidal bunch shape model. The effects of space charge forces and energy spread on longitudinal and transverse bunch properties are evaluated for various bunch lengths, energies and amount of charge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser driven accelerators are capable of producing multi nC, multi MeV electron beams with transverse and longitudinal sizes on the order of microns. To investigate the transport of such electron bunches, a fast and fully relativistic space charge code which can handle beams with arbitrarily large energy spread has been developed. A 6-D macroparticle model for the beam is used to calculate the space charge fields at each time step. The collection of macroparticles is divided into longitudinal momentum bins, each with a small spread in relative momentum. The macropanicle distribution in each momentum bin is decomposed into ellipsoidal shells in position space. For each shell, an analytical expression for the electrostatic force in the bin rest frame is used. The total space charge force acting on one macroparticle in the lab frame is then the vector sum of the Lorentz-transformed forces from all the momentum bins. We have used this code to study the evolution of typical beams emerging from the plasma in the two most popular schemes, i.e., the self-modulated laser-wakefield-accelerator, where the laser pulse size is many times the plasma wavelength (L » λ[sub p]), and the colliding pulse laser-wakefield-accelerator regime where L ∼ λ[sub p] and two counterpropagationg laser pulses are used to inject electrons into the wakefield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to develop a design for a laser-plasma accelerator (LPA) driver, we demonstrate key technologies that enable fiber lasers to produce high energy, ultrafast pulses. These technologies must be scalable, and operate in the presence of thermal drift, acoustic noise, and other perturbations typical of an operating system. We show that coherent pulse stacking (CPS), which requires optical interferometers, can be made robust by image-relaying, multipass optical cavities, and by optical phase control schemes that sense pulse train amplitudes from each cavity. A four-stage pulse stacking system using image-relaying cavities is controlled for 14 hours using a pulse-pattern sensing algorithm. For coherent addition of simultaneous ultrafast pulses, we introduce a new scheme using diffractive optics, and show experimentally that four pulses can be added while a preserving pulse width of 128 fs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advancement of Laser-Plasma Accelerators (LPA) requires systematic studies with ever increasing precision and reproducibility. A key component of such a research endeavor is a facility that provides reliable, well characterized laser sources, flexible target systems, and comprehensive diagnostics of the laser pulses, the interaction region, and the produced electron beams. The Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA), a PW laser facility, now routinely provides high quality focused laser pulses for high precision experiments. A description of the commissioning process, the layout of the laser systems, the major components of the laser and radiation protection systems, and a summary of early results are given. Further scientific plans and highlights of operational experience that serve as the basis for transition to a collaborative research facility in high-peak power laser-plasma interaction research are reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of their ultra-high accelerating gradient, laser plasma based accelerators (LPA) are contemplated for the next generation of high-energy colliders and light sources. The upcoming BELLA project will explore acceleration of electron bunches to 10 GeV in a 1 meter long plasma, where a wakefield is driven by a PW-class laser. Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are used to design LPA stages relevant to the upcoming experiments. Simulations in a Lorentz boosted frame are used to gain significant speed up and to simulate the 10 GeV stages at full scale parameters, otherwise impractical. As criteria on energy spread and beam emittance become more stringent, PIC simulations become more challenging as high frequency noise artificially increases those quantities. To reduce numerical noise, we consider using a Poisson solve to calculate the beam self-fields. This method allows correct cancelation of the beam transverse self-forces and prevents artificial emittance growth for a matched beam in a linear focusing field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of colliding laser pulses to control the injection of plasma electrons into the plasma wake of a laser-plasma accelerator is a promising approach to obtaining GeV scale electron bunches with reduced emittance and energy spread. Colliding Pulse Injection (CPI) experiments are being performed by groups around the world. We present recent particle-in-cell simulations, using the parallel VORPAL framework, of CPI for physical parameters relevant to ongoing experiments of the LOASIS program at LBNL. We perform parameter scans in order to optimize the quality of the bunch, and compare the results with experimental data. Effect of non-ideal gaussian pulses and laser self-focusing in the plasma channel on the trapped bunch are evaluated. For optimized parameters accessible in the experiment, a 20 pC electron beam can be accelerated to 300 MeV with percent level energy spread. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The infrastructure of Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) provides an unprecedented opportunity for a broad range of frontier science. Its highest ever intensity of lasers, as well as high fluence, high power, and/or ultrafast optical characteristics carve out new territories of discovery, ranging from attosecond science to photonuclear science, laser acceleration and associated beams, and high field science (Four Pillars of ELI). Its applications span from medicine, biology, engineering, energy, chemistry, physics, and fundamental understanding of the Universe. The relativistic optics that intense lasers have begun exploring may be extended into a new regime of ultra-relativistic regime, where even protons fly relativistically in the optical fields. ELI provides the highest intensity to date such that photon fields begin to feel even the texture of vacuum. This is a singular appeal of ELI with its relatively modest infrastructure (compared to the contemporary largest scientific infrastructures), yet provides an exceptional avenue along which the 21st Century science and society need to answer the toughest questions. The intensity frontier simultaneously brings in the energy horizon (TeV and PeV) as well as temporal frontier (attoseconds and zeptoseconds). It also turns over optics of atoms and molecules into that of nuclei with the ability to produce monoenergetic collimated γ-ray photons. As such, the ELI concept acutely demands an effort to encompass and integrate its Four Pillars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compact high-energy linacs are important to applications including monochromatic gamma sources for nuclear material security applications. Recent laser wakefield accelerator experiments at LBNL demonstrated narrow energy spread beams, now with energies of up to 1 GeV in 3 cm using a plasma channel at low density. This demonstrates the production of GeV beams from devices much smaller than conventional linacs, and confirms the anticipated scaling of laser driven accelerators to GeV energies. Stable performance at 0.5 GeV was demonstrated. Experiments and simulations are in progress to control injection of particles into the wake and hence to improve beam quality and stability. Using plasma density gradients to control injection, stable beams at 1 MeV over days of operation, and with an order of magnitude lower absolute momentum spread than previously observed, have been demonstrated. New experiments are post-accelerating the beams from controlled injection experiments to increase beam quality and stability. Thomson scattering from such beams is being developed to provide collimated multi-MeV monoenergetic gamma sources for security applications from compact devices. Such sources can reduce dose to target and increase accuracy for applications including photofission and nuclear resonance fluorescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A nonlinear optical pulse cleaning technique based on cross-polarized wave (XPW) generation filtering [1] has been implemented to improve laser pulse contrast, and consequently to control pre-ionization in laser-plasma accelerator experiments. Three orders of magnitude improvement in pre-pulse contrast has been achieved, resulting in 4-fold increase in electron charge and improved stability of both the electron beam energy and THz radiation generated as a secondary process in the gas-jet-based LWFA experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improved computational methods are essential to the diverse and rapidly developing field of advanced accelerator concepts. We present an overview of some computational algorithms for laser-plasma concepts and high-brightness photocathode electron sources. In particular, we discuss algorithms for reduced laser-plasma models that can be orders of magnitude faster than their higher-fidelity counterparts, as well as important on-going efforts to include relevant additional physics that has been previously neglected. As an example of the former, we present 2D laser wakefield accelerator simulations in an optimal Lorentz frame, demonstrating >10 GeV energy gain of externally injected electrons over a 2 m interaction length, showing good agreement with predictions from scaled simulations and theory, with a speedup factor of ∼2,000 as compared to standard particle-in-cell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The LOASIS Laser Wakefield Accelerator (LWFA) has achieved quasi-mono-energetic electron beams with energies up to 1 GeV [1]. These beams offer the potential for use with insertion devices such as wigglers and undulators to create tabletop XUV and x-ray free-electron laser (FEL) sources. To achieve a high quality light source producing high brightness radiation requires an electron beam with low energy spread and low emittance. Here we discuss the use of an undulator to generate XUV radiation to characterize in a single shot the electron beam energy spread and emittance with high precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of ultrashort (fs) x-ray pulses through Thomson scattering of high power laser pulses off relativistic electron bunches generated by laser-plasma accelerators is discussed. These accelerators can typically produce two types of electron bunches: i) a high charge bunch with a broad energy distribution, resulting in x-ray pulses with high flux and a broadband spectrum, and ii) electron bunches with a narrow energy distribution, resulting in an ultrashort x-ray pulse with a nearly monochromatic spectrum. Nonlinear Thomson scattering (high laser intensity) will be considered, as well as the effects of the laser pulse profile. Thomson scattering may provide a useful diagnostic for determining the electron bunch properties via the scattering x-ray spectrum. © 2004 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerator optimization requires detailed study of many parameters, indicating the need for remote control and automated data acquisition systems. A control and data acquisition system based on a network of commodity PCs and applications with standards based interapplication communication is being built for the I'OASIS accelerator facility. This system allows synchronous acquisistion of data at high (> 1Hz) rates and remote control of the accelerator at low cost, allowing detailed study of the acceleration process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present 2-D particle-in-cell simulations of both beam-driven and laser-driven plasma wakefield accelerators, using the object-oriented code XOOPIC, which is time explicit, fully electromagnetic, and capable of running on massively parallel supercomputers. Simulations of laser-driven wakefields with low (∼10[sup 16] W/cm²) and high (∼10[sup 18] W/cm²) peak intensity laser pulses are conducted in slab geometry, showing agreement with theory. Simulations of the E-157 beam wakefield experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, in which a 30 GeV electron beam passes through 1 m of preionized lithium plasma, are conducted in cylindrical geometry, obtaining good agreement with previous work. We briefly describe some of the more significant modifications to XOOPIC required by this work, and summarize the issues relevant to modeling electron-neutral collisions in a particle-in-cell code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present current results on staged electron acceleration in the LOASIS program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The goal is to experimentally demonstrate laser driven electron acceleration in two stages, where each stage is driven by a separate laser pulse. This technology could provide the key to built compact laser driven accelerators which could potentially reach up to TeV in electron energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]