Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 035002 (2009) [4 pages]Near-GeV Acceleration of Electrons by a Nonlinear Plasma Wave Driven by a Self-Guided Laser PulseSee Also: Publisher's Note Received 18 February 2009; published 16 July 2009; publisher error corrected 16 July 2009 The acceleration of electrons to ≃0.8 GeV has been observed in a self-injecting laser wakefield accelerator driven at a plasma density of 5.5×1018 cm-3 by a 10 J, 55 fs, 800 nm laser pulse in the blowout regime. The laser pulse is found to be self-guided for 1 cm (>10zR), by measurement of a single filament containing >30% of the initial laser energy at this distance. Three-dimensional particle in cell simulations show that the intensity within the guided filament is amplified beyond its initial focused value to a normalized vector potential of a0>6, thus driving a highly nonlinear plasma wave. © 2009 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.035002
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.035002
PACS:
52.38.Kd, 41.75.Jv, 52.38.Hb
See AlsoPublisher's Note: S. Kneip et al., Publisher’s Note: Near-GeV Acceleration of Electrons by a Nonlinear Plasma Wave Driven by a Self-Guided Laser Pulse [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 035002 (2009)], Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 049901 (2009). |
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