Study of quasimonoenergetic electron bunch generation in self-modulated laser wakefield acceleration using TW or sub-TW ultrashort laser pulses

Authors

E. P. Maldonado, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica
R. E. Samad, Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares
A. Bonatto, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre
R. P. Nunes, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
S. Banerjee, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
N. D. Vieira, Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares

Date of this Version

6-8-2021

Citation

AIP Advances 11, 065116 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0052831. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0052831

Comments

Used by permission.

Abstract

This work presents a study on laser wakefield electron acceleration in the self-modulated regime (SM-LWFA) using 50-fs laser pulses with energy on the mJ scale, at λ = 0.8 μm, impinging on a thin H₂ gas jet. Particle-in-cell simulations were performed using laser peak powers ranging from sub-terawatt to a few terawatts and plasma densities varying from the relativistic self-focusing threshold up to values close to the critical density. The differences in the obtained acceleration processes are discussed. Results show that bunched electron beams with full charge on the nC scale and kinetic energy in the MeV range can be produced and configurations with peak density in the range 0.5–5 × 10²⁰ atoms/cm³ generate electrons with maximum energies. In this range, some simulations generated quasimonoenergetic bunches with ∼0.5% of the total accelerated charge and we show that the beam characteristics, process dynamics, and operational parameters are close to those expected for the blowout regime. The configurations that led to quasimonoenergetic bunches from the sub-TW SM-LWFA regime allow the use of laser systems with repetition rates in the kHz range, which can be beneficial for practical applications.