Numerical study of 1.1 GeV electron acceleration over a-few-millimeter-long plasma with a tapered density
- School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UNIST, BanYeon-Ri 100, Ulju-gun, Ulsan 689-798 (Korea, Republic of)
- APRI, GIST, 261 Cheomdan-gwangiro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 500-712 (Korea, Republic of)
We present two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of laser wakefield electron acceleration up to 1.1 GeV over a-few-millimeter-long plasma with the help of density tapering. We observed that, in a uniform plasma, the electron beam reaches the dephasing state not only by the slow phase velocity of the wakefield but also by the relativistic prolonging of the plasma wavelength. Such a dephasing between the wakefield and beam can be mitigated by an upward density taper. By employing a parabolically increasing plasma density, we obtained a significant enhancement of the beam energy from 850 MeV (uniform) to 1.1 GeV (tapered). However, the similar relativistically promoted dephasing was observed again in the environment of tapered density. Over a few millimeters the driving laser pulse was well self-guided without any externally prepared channel. Thus, this parameter regime is suitable for the gas-jet laser wakefield electron acceleration experiments.
- OSTI ID:
- 21537313
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 18, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3561781; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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