Laser Wakefield Acceleration Driven by ATF CO(sub 2) Laser (STELLA-LW).

Kimura, W. D. ; Andreev, N. E. ; Babzien, M. ; Ben-Zvi, I. ; Cline, D. B. ; Dilley, C. E. ; Gootschalk, S. C. ; Hooker, S. M. ; Kusche, K. P. ; Kuznetosov, S. V. ; Pantell, R. H.

Technical Information Center Oak Ridge Tennessee

关键词: Wakefield accelerators;    Lasers;    Acceleration;    Capillaries;    Electrons;   

RP-ID  :  DE200415009933

学科分类：工程和技术（综合）

美国|英语

来源: National Technical Reports Library

【 摘 要 】

A new experiment has begun that builds upon the successful Staged Electron Laser Acceleration (STELLA) experiment, which demonstrated high-trapping efficiency and narrow energy spread in a staged laser-driven accelerator. STELLA was based upon inverse free electron lasers (IFEL); the new experiment, called STELLA-LW, is based upon laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA). The first phase of STELLA-LW will be to demonstrate LWFA in a capillary discharge driven by the Brookhaven National Laboratory Accelerator Test Facility (ATF) terawatt CO(sub 2) laser beam. This will be the first time LWFA is conducted at 10.6-(micro)m laser wavelength. It will also be operating in an interesting pseudo-resonant regime where the laser pulse length is too long for resonant LWFA, but too short for self-modulated LWFA. Analysis has shown that in pseudo-resonant LWFA, pulse-steepening effects occur on the laser pulse that permits generation of strong wakefields. Various approaches are being explored for the capillary discharge including polypropylene and hydrogen-filled capillaries. Planned diagnostics for the experiment include coherent Thomson scattering (CTS) to detect the wakefield generation.