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Circumventing the dephasing and depletion limits of laser-wakefield acceleration

Debus, A.; Pausch, R.; Huebl, A.; Steiniger, K.; Cowan, T. E.; Schramm, U.; Widera, R.; Bussmann, M.

Compact electron accelerators are paramount to next generation synchrotron light sources and free-electron lasers, as well as for advanced accelerators at the TeV energy frontier. Recent progress in laser-plasma driven accelerators (LPA) has extended their electron energies to the multi-GeV range and improved beam stability for insertion devices.
However, the sub-luminal group-velocity of plasma waves limits the final electron energy which can be achieved in a single LPA accelerator stage, also known as the dephasing limit.
Here we present the first laser-plasma driven electron accelerator concept without electrons outrunning the wakefield. Our scheme is robust against parasitic self-injection and self-phase modulation as well as drive-laser depletion and defocusing along the accelerated electron beam. It works for a broad range of plasma densities in gas targets.
This opens the way for scaling up electron energies towards TeV scale electron beams without the need for multiple laser-accelerator stages.

Keywords: Laser-produced plasmas; Plasma-based accelerators; Laser-wakefield acceleration; Traveling-wave electron acceleration; TWEAC

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Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-25244
Publ.-Id: 25244