Near-GeV acceleration of electrons by a nonlinear plasma wave driven by a self-guided laser pulse

S. Kneip*, S. R. Nagel, S. F. Martins, S. P.D. Mangles, C. Bellei, O. Chekhlov, R. J. Clarke, N. Delerue, E. J. Divall, G. Doucas, K. Ertel, F. Fiuza, R. Fonseca, P. Foster, S. J. Hawkes, C. J. Hooker, K. Krushelnick, W. B. Mori, C. A.J. Palmer, K. Ta PhuocP. P. Rajeev, J. Schreiber, M. J.V. Streeter, D. Urner, J. Vieira, L. O. Silva, Z. Najmudin

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

275 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The acceleration of electrons to has been observed in a self-injecting laser wakefield accelerator driven at a plasma density of a 10 J, 55 fs, 800 nm laser pulse in the blowout regime. The laser pulse is found to be self-guided for 1 cm ), by measurement of a single filament containing of the initial laser energy at this distance. Three-dimensional particle in cell simulations show that the intensity within the guided filament is amplified beyond its initial focused value to a normalized vector potential of , thus driving a highly nonlinear plasma wave.

Original languageEnglish
Article number035002
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume103
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 06 Aug 2009
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Copyright:
Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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