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The interaction of ultra-intense laser pulses with an underdense plasma is used in laser-plasma acceleration to create compact sources of ultrashort pulses of relativistic electrons and X-rays. The accelerating structure is a plasma wave, or wakefield, that is excited by the laser ponderomotive force, a force that is usually assumed to depend solely on the laser envelope and not on its exact waveform. Here, we use near-single-cycle laser pulses with a controlled carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) to show that the actual waveform of the laser field has a clear impact on the plasma response. We measure relativistic electron beams that are found to be strongly CEP dependent, implying that we achieve waveform control of electron dynamics in underdense laser-plasma interaction. Our results pave the way to high precision, sub-cycle control of electron injection in plasma accelerators, enabling the production of attosecond relativistic electron bunches and X-rays.
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Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation is used to investigate the witness proton acceleration in underdense plasma with a short intense Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) laser pulse. Driven by the LG10 laser pulse, a special bubble with an electron pillar on the axis is formed, in which protons can be well-confined by the generated transversal focusing field and accelerated by the longitudinal wakefield. The risk of scattering prior to acceleration with a Gaussian laser pulse in underdense plasma is avoided, and protons are accelerated stably to much higher energy. In simulation, a proton beam has been accelerated to 7 GeV from 1 GeV in underdense tritium plasma driven by a 2.14x1022 W/cm2 LG10 laser pulse.
The expansion of electromagnetic post-solitons emerging from the interaction of a 30 ps, $3times 10^{18}$ W cm$^{-2}$ laser pulse with an underdense deuterium plasma has been observed up to 100 ps after the pulse propagation, when large numbers of post-solitons were seen to remain in the plasma. The temporal evolution of the post-solitons has been accurately characterized with a high spatial and temporal resolution. The observed expansion is compared to analytical models and three dimensional particle-in-cell results providing indication of the polarisation dependence of the post-soliton dynamics.
Charges in cold, multiple-species, non-neutral plasmas separate radially by mass, forming centrifugally-separated states. Here, we report the first detailed measurements of such states in an electron-antiproton plasma, and the first observations of the separation dynamics in any centrifugally-separated system. While the observed equilibrium states are expected and in agreement with theory, the equilibration time is approximately constant over a wide range of parameters, a surprising and as yet unexplained result. Electron-antiproton plasmas play a crucial role in antihydrogen trapping experiments.
We report the enhancement of individual harmonics generated at a relativistic ultra-steep plasma vacuum interface. Simulations show the harmonic emission to be due to the coupled action of two high velocity oscillations -- at the fundamental $omega_L$ and at the plasma frequency $omega_P$ of the bulk plasma. The synthesis of the enhanced harmonics can be described by the reflection of the incident laser pulse at a relativistic mirror oscillating at $omega_L$ and $omega_P$.
High-energy-density electron-positron pair plasma production and its dynamics in a thin foil illuminated by two counter-propagating laser pulses are investigated through multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We compare the production of electron-positron pairs and gamma-photons via quantum electrodynamics processes in the relativistic transparent and opaque regimes, and find that the target transparency can significantly enhance the electron-positron pair production due to the formation of stable standing wave (SW). An optimum foil density of 200 - 280 n_c (n_c is the laser critical density) is found for enhancing electron-positron pair production when laser intensity reaches a few 10e23 W/cm2. At such foil density, laser energy conversion to electron-positron pairs is approximately four times higher than at foil density of 710n_c, whereas laser energy conversion to gamma-photons keeps almost the same. Consequently, high dense electron-positron plasma with a maximum intensity above 10e20 W/cm2 is produced. Modulation dynamics of created pair plasmas is further observed when target foil becomes transparent. It is shown that stable SWs formed directly by two counter-propagating lasers, not only trap the created electron-positron pairs to their nodes, but also modulate periodically average energy and phase-space and angular distributions of trapped particles. However, similar trapping and modulation effects become obscure in the opaque regime due to the absence of stable SW field.
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