Department of Physics and Astronomy: Publications and Other Research

 

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2013

Citation

Plasma Science (ICOPS), 2013 Abstracts IEEE International Conference on Year: 2013

Comments

Copyright 2013 IEEE

Abstract

The radiation pressure of a multi-terawatt, sub-100 fs laser pulse propagating in an under-dense plasma causes complete electron cavitation. The resulting electron density “bubble” guides the pulse over many Rayleigh lengths, leaving the background ions unperturbed while maintaining GV/cm-scale accelerating and focusing gradients. The shape of the bubble, and, hence, the wakefield potentials, evolve slowly, in lockstep with the optical driver. This dynamic structure readily traps background electrons. The electron injection process can thus be controlled by purely optical means.

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