WEYBA2
LBNL, Berkeley, California, USA
Laser plasma accelerators are able to generate large acceleration gradients, tens to hundreds of GV/m, several orders of magnitude larger than conventional radio frequency technology. To achieve high beam energies, preformed plasma waveguides can be used to mitigate laser diffraction of focused laser pulses, increasing the acceleration length and the energy gain for a given laser power. Here we report on guiding of relativistically intense laser pulses with PW peak power over 20 diffraction lengths by increasing the focusing strength of a capillary discharge waveguide using laser inverse Bremsstrahlung heating. This allowed production of electron beams with quasi-monoenergetic peaks in energy up to 7.8 GeV,* almost double what was previously demonstrated.**
* A. J. Gonsalves, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 084801 (2018).
** W. P. Leemans, A. J. Gonsalves, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 245002 (2014).
