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Nonlinear plasma wavelength scalings in a laser wakefield accelerator

Laser wakefield acceleration relies on the excitation of a plasma wave due to the ponderomotive force of an intense laser pulse. However, plasma wave trains in the wake of the laser have scarcely been studied directly in experiments. Here we use few-cycle shadowgraphy in conjunction with interferome...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2020-01
Main Authors: Ding, H, Döpp, A, Gilljohann, M, Goetzfried, J, Schindler, S, Wildgruber, L, Cheung, G, Hooker, S M, Karsch, S
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Laser wakefield acceleration relies on the excitation of a plasma wave due to the ponderomotive force of an intense laser pulse. However, plasma wave trains in the wake of the laser have scarcely been studied directly in experiments. Here we use few-cycle shadowgraphy in conjunction with interferometry to quantify plasma waves excited by the laser within the density range of GeV-scale accelerators, i.e. a few 1e18 cm-3. While analytical models suggest a clear dependency between the non-linear plasma wavelength and the peak potential a_0, our study shows that the analytical models are only accurate for driver strength a_0
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2001.09507