• D.H. Froula, J. Bonlie, L. Divol, S.H. Glenzer, P. Michel, J. Palastro, D. Price, J.E. Ralph, J.S. Ross, C. Siders
  LLNL, Livermore, California
• C.E. Clayton, C. Joshi, K.A. Marsh, A.E. Pak
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California
• B.B. Pollock, G.R. Tynan
  UCSD, La Jolla, California

Funding: This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 and DE-FG03-92ER40727, and LDRD 06-ERD-056

Recent laser wakefield acceleration experiments at the Jupiter Laser Facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will be discussed where the Callisto Laser has been upgraded and has demonstrated 60 fs, 10 J laser pulses. This 150 TW facility is providing the foundation to develop a GeV electron beam and associated betatron x-ray source for use on the petawatt high-repetition rate laser facility currently under development at LLNL. Initial self-guided experiments have produced high energy monoenergetic electrons while experiments using a multi-centimeter long magnetically controlled optical plasma waveguide are investigated. Measurements of the electron energy gain and electron trapping threshold using 150 TW laser pulses will be presented.

• A.E. Pak, C. Joshi, K.A. Marsh, W.B. Mori
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California
• S.F. Martins
  Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon

Funding: Work Supported by DOE Grant DEFG02-92ER40727

Controlling the trapping of electrons into accelerating wakefields is an important step to obtaining a stable reproducible electron beam from a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA). Recent experiments at UCLA have focused on using the different ionization potentials of gases as a mechanism for controlling the trapping of electrons into an LWFA. The accelerating wakefield was produced using an ultra-intense (Io ~ 10¹⁹ W / cm² ), ultra-short (τFWHM ~ 40 fs) laser pulses. The laser pulse was focused onto the edge of column of gas created by a gas jet. The gas was a mixture of helium and nitrogen. The rising edge of the laser pulse fully ionizes the helium and the first five bound electrons of the nitrogen. Only at the peak of the laser pulse is it intense enough to ionize the most tightly bound electrons of the nitrogen. Electrons which are ionized at the peak of laser pulse are born into a favorable phase space within the accelerating wakefield and are subsequently trapped and accelerated. The accelerated electrons were dispersed using a dipole magnet with a ~ 1 Tesla magnetic field onto a phosphor screen. Electron beam energy spectrum charge and divergence were measured.

• J.E. Ralph, F. Fang, C. Joshi, W. Lu, K.A. Marsh, W.B. Mori, A.E. Pak, F.S. Tsung
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California

Funding: This work was supported by The Department of Energy Grant No.DEFG02-92ER40727.

The self-guiding of relativistically intense but ultra-short laser pulses has been experimentally investigated as a function of laser power, plasma density and plasma length in the so-called "blowout" regime. Although etching of the short laser pulse due to diffraction and local pump depletion erodes the the head of the laser pulse, an intense portion of the pulse is guided over tens of Rayleigh lengths, as observed by imaging the exit of the plasma. Spectrally-resolved images of the laser pulse at the exit of the plasma show evidence for photon acceleration as well as deceleration (pump depletion)in a well defined narrow guided region. This is indicative of the self-guided pulse residing in the wake excited in the plasma. Energy outside the guided region was found to be minimized when the initial conditions at the plasma entrance were closest to the theoretical matching conditions for guiding in the blowout regime. The maximum extent of the guided length is shown to be consistent with the nonlinear pump depletion length predicted by theory.

• B.B. Pollock, J.S. Ross, G.R. Tynan
  UCSD, La Jolla, California
• C.E. Clayton, C. Joshi, K.A. Marsh, A.E. Pak, T.-L. Wang
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California
• L. Divol, D.H. Froula, S.H. Glenzer, V. Leurent, J. Palastro, J.E. Ralph
  LLNL, Livermore, California

We present experimental results showing the formation of a laser produced optical waveguide, suitable for laser guiding, when applying a high external magnetic field around a gas cell. This technique is directly applicable to wakefield acceleration and has been established at the Jupiter Laser Facility; an external magnetic field prevents radial heat transport, resulting in an increased electron temperature gradient [D. H. Froula et.al., Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion, 51, 024009 (2009)]. Interferometry and spatially resolved Thomson-scattering diagnostics measure the radial electron density profile, and show that multiple-centimeter long waveguides with minimum electron densities of 10¹⁷ to 10¹⁸ cm^-3 can be produced. Temporally resolved Thomson-scattering is also performed to characterize the evolution of the density channel in time. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 and was partially funded by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program under project tracking code 06-ERD-056.

• D.J. Haberberger, C. Joshi, K.A. Marsh, A.E. Pak, S. Tochitsky
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California

Funding: This work is supported by the DOE Contract No. DE-FG03-92ER40727.

Over the last several years, the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA) mechanism in solid density plasmas produced by a laser pulse has achieved proton energies up to 10’s of MeV and quasi-monoenergetic beams at lower energies. Although solid-target experiments have demonstrated high-charge and low-emittance proton beams, little work has been done with gaseous targets which in principle can be operated at a very high repetition frequency. At the Neptune Laboratory, there is an ongoing experiment on CO2 laser driven proton acceleration using a rectangular (0.5x2mm) H2 gas jet as a target. The main goal is to study the coupling of the laser pulse into a plasma with a well defined density in the range of 0.5 to 2 times critical density and characterize the corresponding spectra of accelerated protons. Towards this end, the Neptune TW CO2 laser system is being upgraded to produce shorter 1-3ps pulses. These high-power pulses will allow us to investigate acceleration of protons via the TNSA and Direct Ponderomotive Pressure mechanisms as well as their combination. The current status of the proton source experiment will be presented.