Author: Leemans, W.
Paper Title Page
WEIC03
Applications of Laser Plasma Accelerators  
 
  • W. Leemans
    LBNL, Berkeley, California, USA
 
  Funding: Support from the DoE, Office of High Energy Physics, DTRA, NA-22 and NSF are greatfully acknowledged.
Laser plasma accelerators rely on the use of intense laser pulses to drive large amplitude electron density waves in plasmas. These waves have been shown to trap and accelerate background plasma electrons and produce high quality electron beams.* Beams with energy around 1 GeV, femtosecond in duration, and with percent level energy spread and low emittance have been produced using cm-scale structures powered by 40-50 TW laser pulses** and experiments are underway to produce 10 GeV beams using PW-class laser pulses. Low energy (MeV) beams have also been produced. With laser technology maturing, these compact systems are becoming more and more stable, tunable and reliable, opening the possibility for many applications. The applications include compact accelerators for femtosecond light sources, medicine and homeland security, and ultimately colliders. This talk will discuss where we are and what should become possible in the next decade (or two) and what needs to happen to make the transition from laboratory device to robust accelerator.
* E. Esarey, C.B. Schroeder and W.P. Leemans, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 1229(2009).
** W.P. Leemans et al., Nature Physics 2, 696 (2006).
 
slides icon Slides WEIC03 [9.645 MB]  
 
WEEPPB003 Modeling of 10 GeV-1 TeV Laser-Plasma Accelerators Using Lorentz Boosted Simulations 2172
 
  • J.-L. Vay, E. Esarey, C.G.R. Geddes, W. Leemans, C.B. Schroeder
    LBNL, Berkeley, California, USA
  • E. Cormier-Michel
    Tech-X, Boulder, Colorado, USA
  • D.P. Grote
    LLNL, Livermore, California, USA
 
  Funding: Supported by US-DOE Contracts DE-AC02-05CH11231 and DE-AC52-07NA27344, US-LHC program LARP, and US-DOE SciDAC program ComPASS.
Modeling of laser-plasma wakefield accelerators in an optimal frame of reference [J.-L. Vay, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 130405 (2007)] allows direct and efficient full-scale modeling of deeply depleted and beam loaded laser-plasma stages of 10 GeV-1 TeV (parameters not computationally accessible otherwise). This verifies the scaling of plasma accelerators to very high energies and accurately models the laser evolution and the accelerated electron beam transverse dynamics and energy spread. Over 4, 5 and 6 orders of magnitude speedup is achieved for the modeling of 10 GeV, 100 GeV and 1 TeV class stages, respectively. Agreement at the percentage level is demonstrated between simulations using different frames of reference for a 0.1 GeV class stage. Obtaining these speedups and levels of accuracy was permitted by solutions for handling data input (in particular particle and laser beams injection) and output in a relativistically boosted frame of reference, as well as mitigation of a high-frequency instability that otherwise limits effectiveness.
Used resources of NERSC, supported by US-DOE Contract DE-AC02-05CH11231.