Enhancement of electron energy to multi-GeV regime by a dual-stage laser-wakefield accelerator pumped by petawatt laser pulses

Laser wakefield acceleration offers the promise of a compact electron accelerator for generating a multi-GeV electron beam using the huge field gradient induced by an intense laser pulse, compared to conventional rf accelerators. However, the energy and quality of the electron beam from the laser wakefield accelerator have been limited by the power of the driving laser pulses and interaction properties in the target medium. Recent progress in laser technology has resulted in the realization of a petawatt (PW) femtosecond laser, which offers new capabilities for research on laser wakefield acceleration. Here, we present a significant increase in laser-driven electron energy to the multi-GeV level by utilizing a 30-fs, 1-PW laser system. In particular, a dual-stage laser wakefield acceleration scheme (injector and accelerator scheme) was applied to boost electron energies to over 3 GeV with a single PW laser pulse. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations corroborate the multi-GeV electron generation from the dual-stage laser wakefield accelerator driven by PW laser pulses.

QCD Explorer Based ea and gamma-a Colliders

TeV scale lepton-hadron and photon-hadron colliders are necessary both to clarify fundamental aspects of strong interactions and for adequate interpretation of the LHC data. Today, there are two realistic proposals for the post-HERA era, namely, QCD Explorer (QCD-E) and Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC). Both QCD-E and LHeC can operate as eA colliders, whereas gamma-p and gamma-A options are unique for QCD-E. Another advantage of QCD-E is the possibility to increase the center of mass energy by lengthening of electron linac. In this presentation main parameters of the QCD-E nucleus options are discussed.