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Multi-Color γ-Rays from Comb-Like Electron Beams Driven by Incoherent Stacks of Laser Pulses
AIP Conference Proceedings (2017)
  • Serge Y Kalmykov
  • X. Davoine, CEA, DAM DIF
  • Isaac Ghebregziabher, The Pennsylvania State University
  • Bradley A. Shadwick, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Abstract
Trains of fs-length, GeV-scale electron bunches with controlled energy spacing and a 5-D brightness up to
10^17 A/m^2 may be produced in a mm-scale uniform plasma. The main element of the scheme is an incoherent stack of 10-TW-scale laser pulses of different colors, with mismatched focal spots, with the highest-frequency pulse advanced in time. While driving an electron density bubble, this stack remains almost proof against nonlinear red-shift and self-compression. As a consequence, the unwanted continuous injection of background electrons is minimized. Weak focusing of the trailing (lower-frequency) component of the stack enforces expansions and contractions of the bubble, inducing controlled periodic injection. The resulting train of electron bunches maintains exceptional quality while being accelerated beyond the energy limits predicted by accepted scalings. Inverse Thomson scattering from this comb-like beam generates a sequence of quasimonochromatic,
fs-length γ-ray beams, an asset for nuclear forensics and pump-probe experiments in dense plasmas.
Keywords
  • Laser plasma acceleration,
  • inverse Thomson scattering,
  • optical control of injection,
  • comb-like electron beams
Publication Date
Spring March 8, 2017
DOI
10.1063/1.4975899
Citation Information
S. Y. Kalmykov, X. Davoine, I. Ghebregziabher, and B. A. Shadwick, Multi-color γ-rays from comb-like electron beams driven by incoherent stacks of laser pulses, in The 17th Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop, Steven S. Gold, Gregory S. Nusinovich, Kent P. Wootton, Editors, AIP Conf. Proc. 1812, 100001 (2017).
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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY International License.