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On the stability of laser wakefield electron accelerators in the monoenergetic regime

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

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  • Stuart P. D. Mangles
  • Alexander George Roy Thomas
  • Olle Lundh
  • Filip Lindau
  • M. C. Kaluza
  • A. Persson
  • C.-G. Wahlstrom
  • Karl Krushelnick
  • Zulfikar Najmudin
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Article number056702
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>1/05/2007
<mark>Journal</mark>Physics of Plasmas
Issue number5
Volume14
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date1/03/07
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

The effects of plasma density and laser energy on the stability of laser produced monoenergetic electron beams are investigated. Fluctuations in the principal beam parameters, namely, electron energy, energy-spread, charge, and pointing, are demonstrated to be minimized at low densities. This improvement in stability is attributed to the reduced time for pulse evolution required before self-injection occurs; i.e., that the pulse is closest to the matched conditions for these densities. It is also observed that electrons are only consistently produced above a density-dependent energy threshold. These observations are consistent with there being a threshold intensity (a0≳3)(a0≳3) required for the occurrence of self-injection after accounting for pulse compression.