UCLA, Los Angeles, California
Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon
In a laser wakefield accelerator experiment where the length of the pump laser pulse is several plasma period long, the leading edge of the laser pulse undergoes frequency downshifting as the laser energy is transferred to the wake. Therefore, after some propagation distance, the group velocity of the leading edge of of the pump pulse–and therefore of the driven electron plasma wave–will slow down. This can have implications for the dephasing length of the accelerated electrons and therefore needs to be understood experimentally. We have carried out an experimental investigation where we have measured the velocity vf of the 'wave-front' of the plasma wave driven by a nominally 50fs (FWHM), intense (a0~1), 0.8 micron laser pulse. To determine the speed of the wave front, time- and space-resolved shadowgraphy, interferometry, and Thomson scattering were used. Although low density data (ne ~ 1018 cm-3) showed no significant changes in vf over 1.5mm (and no accelerated electrons), high-density data shows accelerated electrons and an approximately 5% drop in vf after a propagation distance of about 800 microns.
