SPRG Seminars
March 4, 2014:
"Particle acceleration in laser-driven laboratory plasma waves"
Cameron G. R. Geddes, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley
Plasma waves can trap and accelerate particles to high energies in space and laboratory plasmas. Laboratory experiments drive electron plasma waves using the radiation pressure of intense lasers, creating accelerators which can achieve gradients of hundreds of GV/m, and giving laboratory insight into the coupling between the electromagnetic (or particle beam) driver, plasma wave, and particles. Principles of wave excitation and acceleration will be reviewed. Applications include compact accelerators (with gradients ~1000x conventional machines) for MeV photon and other light sources, and for high energy physics. To deliver the required electron bunch quality, detailed understanding and control is required of plasma wave structure and evolution in the regime where the wave density perturbation is of order unity. A new generation of experiments and simulations will be described which are developing controlled injection, guiding, acceleration to multiple GeV, and detailed control over beam quality to address these requirements. Control of laser propagation at relativistic intensities including plasma focusing and depletion, and control of electron bunch phase space in the wake, are also required.