Optical guiding and stability of intense short laser pulses in plasma channels

Author

Sprangle, Phillip ; Hafizi, Bahman

Author_Institution

Div. of Plasma Phys., Naval Res. Lab., Washington, DC, USA

Volume

1

fYear

1998

fDate

6/20/1905 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

127

Abstract

Laser pulse propagation can be strongly influenced by nonlinear effects (relativistic and/or atomic electrons), ionization processes and finite pulse length effects. In this paper these processes are included in the analysis of the propagation and stability of intense laser pulses in plasmas. An envelope equation, which includes ionization and nonlinear effects, is derived and the spot size is found to be unstable to an ionization-modulation instability. Short laser pulses propagating in plasma channels are found to undergo an envelope modulation that is always damped in the front and initially grows in the back of the pulse. An example of laser wakefield acceleration to electron energies greater than 2, 5 GeV in a plasma channel is described

Keywords

photoionisation; plasma light propagation; wakefield accelerators; envelope modulation; finite pulse length effects; intense short laser pulses; ionization processes; ionization-modulation instability; laser pulse propagation; laser wakefield acceleration; nonlinear effects; optical guiding; plasma channels; stability; Atom optics; Electron optics; Ionization; Laser stability; Nonlinear optics; Optical propagation; Optical pulses; Plasma accelerators; Plasma stability; Pulse modulation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

High-Power Particle Beams, 1998. BEAMS '98. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Haifa

Print_ISBN

0-7803-4287-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/BEAMS.1998.822401

Filename

822401