Controlled injection and acceleration of electrons in plasma wakefields by colliding laser pulses

In laser-plasma-based accelerators, an intense laser pulse drives a large electric field (the wakefield) which accelerates particles to high energies in distances much shorter than in conventional accelerators. These high acceleration gradients, of a few hundreds of gigavolts per metre, hold the promise of compact high-energy particle accelerators. Recently, several experiments have shown that laser-plasma accelerators can produce high-quality electron beams, with quasi-monoenergetic energy distributions at the 100 MeV level. However, these beams do not have the stability and reproducibility that are required for applications. This is because the mechanism responsible for injecting electrons into the wakefield is based on highly nonlinear phenomena, and is therefore hard to control. Here we demonstrate that the injection and subsequent acceleration of electrons can be controlled by using a second laser pulse. The collision of the two laser pulses provides a pre-acceleration stage which provokes the injection of electrons into the wakefield. The experimental results show that the electron beams obtained in this manner are collimated (5 mrad divergence), monoenergetic (with energy spread <10 per cent), tuneable (between 15 and 250 MeV) and, most importantly, stable. In addition, the experimental observations are compatible with electron bunch durations shorter than 10 fs. We anticipate that this stable and compact electron source will have a strong impact on applications requiring short bunches, such as the femtolysis of water, or high stability, such as radiotherapy with high-energy electrons or radiography for materials science.     

Monoenergetic beams of relativistic electrons from intense laser-plasma interactions

High-power lasers that fit into a university-scale laboratory can now reach focused intensities of more than 10(19) W cm(-2) at high repetition rates. Such lasers are capable of producing beams of energetic electrons, protons and gamma-rays. Relativistic electrons are generated through the breaking of large-amplitude relativistic plasma waves created in the wake of the laser pulse as it propagates through a plasma, or through a direct interaction between the laser field and the electrons in the plasma. However, the electron beams produced from previous laser-plasma experiments have a large energy spread, limiting their use for potential applications. Here we report high-resolution energy measurements of the electron beams produced from intense laser-plasma interactions, showing that--under particular plasma conditions--it is possible to generate beams of relativistic electrons with low divergence and a small energy spread (less than three per cent). The monoenergetic features were observed in the electron energy spectrum for plasma densities just above a threshold required for breaking of the plasma wave. These features were observed consistently in the electron spectrum, although the energy of the beam was observed to vary from shot to shot. If the issue of energy reproducibility can be addressed, it should be possible to generate ultrashort monoenergetic electron bunches of tunable energy, holding great promise for the future development of 'table-top' particle accelerators.     

A laser-plasma accelerator producing monoenergetic electron beams

Particle accelerators are used in a wide variety of fields, ranging from medicine and biology to high-energy physics. The accelerating fields in conventional accelerators are limited to a few tens of MeV m(-1), owing to material breakdown at the walls of the structure. Thus, the production of energetic particle beams currently requires large-scale accelerators and expensive infrastructures. Laser-plasma accelerators have been proposed as a next generation of compact accelerators because of the huge electric fields they can sustain (>100 GeV m(-1)). However, it has been difficult to use them efficiently for applications because they have produced poor-quality particle beams with large energy spreads, owing to a randomization of electrons in phase space. Here we demonstrate that this randomization can be suppressed and that the quality of the electron beams can be dramatically enhanced. Within a length of 3 mm, the laser drives a plasma bubble that traps and accelerates plasma electrons. The resulting electron beam is extremely collimated and quasi-monoenergetic, with a high charge of 0.5 nC at 170 MeV.     

Laser acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic MeV ion beams

Acceleration of particles by intense laser-plasma interactions represents a rapidly evolving field of interest, as highlighted by the recent demonstration of laser-driven relativistic beams of monoenergetic electrons. Ultrahigh-intensity lasers can produce accelerating fields of 10 TV m(-1) (1 TV = 10(12) V), surpassing those in conventional accelerators by six orders of magnitude. Laser-driven ions with energies of several MeV per nucleon have also been produced. Such ion beams exhibit unprecedented characteristics--short pulse lengths, high currents and low transverse emittance--but their exponential energy spectra have almost 100% energy spread. This large energy spread, which is a consequence of the experimental conditions used to date, remains the biggest impediment to the wider use of this technology. Here we report the production of quasi-monoenergetic laser-driven C5+ ions with a vastly reduced energy spread of 17%. The ions have a mean energy of 3 MeV per nucleon (full-width at half-maximum approximately 0.5 MeV per nucleon) and a longitudinal emittance of less than 2 x 10(-6) eV s for pulse durations shorter than 1 ps. Such laser-driven, high-current, quasi-monoenergetic ion sources may enable significant advances in the development of compact MeV ion accelerators, new diagnostics, medical physics, inertial confinement fusion and fast ignition.     

Laser-plasma acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic protons from microstructured targets

Particle acceleration based on high intensity laser systems (a process known as laser-plasma acceleration) has achieved high quality particle beams that compare favourably with conventional acceleration techniques in terms of emittance, brightness and pulse duration. A long-term difficulty associated with laser-plasma acceleration--the very broad, exponential energy spectrum of the emitted particles--has been overcome recently for electron beams. Here we report analogous results for ions, specifically the production of quasi-monoenergetic proton beams using laser-plasma accelerators. Reliable and reproducible laser-accelerated ion beams were achieved by intense laser irradiation of solid microstructured targets. This proof-of-principle experiment serves to illuminate the role of laser-generated plasmas as feasible particle sources. Scalability studies show that, owing to their compact size and reasonable cost, such table-top laser systems with high repetition rates could contribute to the development of new generations of particle injectors that may be suitable for medical proton therapy.     

Energy doubling of 42 GeV electrons in a metre-scale plasma wakefield accelerator

The energy frontier of particle physics is several trillion electron volts, but colliders capable of reaching this regime (such as the Large Hadron Collider and the International Linear Collider) are costly and time-consuming to build; it is therefore important to explore new methods of accelerating particles to high energies. Plasma-based accelerators are particularly attractive because they are capable of producing accelerating fields that are orders of magnitude larger than those used in conventional colliders. In these accelerators, a drive beam (either laser or particle) produces a plasma wave (wakefield) that accelerates charged particles. The ultimate utility of plasma accelerators will depend on sustaining ultrahigh accelerating fields over a substantial length to achieve a significant energy gain. Here we show that an energy gain of more than 42 GeV is achieved in a plasma wakefield accelerator of 85 cm length, driven by a 42 GeV electron beam at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The results are in excellent agreement with the predictions of three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Most of the beam electrons lose energy to the plasma wave, but some electrons in the back of the same beam pulse are accelerated with a field of approximately 52 GV m(-1). This effectively doubles their energy, producing the energy gain of the 3-km-long SLAC accelerator in less than a metre for a small fraction of the electrons in the injected bunch. This is an important step towards demonstrating the viability of plasma accelerators for high-energy physics applications.     

超短超强激光与等离子体相互作用中质子发射一些研究进展

超短超强激光与等离子体相互作用中得到的高能质子在质子成像、粒子加速、诊断超短超强激光与等离子体相互作用的物理过程、“快点火”和治疗癌症等方面有一定的应用。使得对超短超强激光与等离子体相互作用得到的高能质子的研究成为目前的研究热点。文章综述了产生质子的两种主要加速机制以及在不同实验条件下超短超强激光与等离子体相互作用过程中得到质子的能量、角分布、产额以及相关的原理。     

Fast acceleration of “killer” electrons and energetic ions by interplanetary shock stimulated ULF waves in the inner magnetosphere

Energetic electrons and ions in the Van Allen radiation belt are the number one space weather threat. Understanding how these energetic particles are accelerated within the Van Allen radiation belt is one of the major challenges in space physics. This paper reviews the recent progress on the fast acceleration of "killer" electrons and energetic ions by ultralow frequency (ULF) waves stimulated by the interplanetary shock in the inner magnetosphere. Very low frequency (VLF) wave-particle interaction is considered to be one of the primary electron acceleration mechanisms because electron cyclotron resonances can easily occur in the VLF frequency range. Recently, using four Cluster spacecraft observations, we have found that, after interplanetary shocks impact the Earth’s magnetosphere, energetic electrons in the radiation belt are accelerated almost immediately and continue to accelerate for a few hours. The time scale (a few days) for traditional acceleration mechanisms, based on VLF wave-particle interactions to accelerate electrons to relativistic energies, is too long to explain our observations. Furthermore, we have found that interplanetary shocks or solar wind pressure pulses, with even small dynamic pressure changes, can play a non-negligible role in radiation belt dynamics. Interplanetary shocks interaction with the Earth’s magnetosphere manifests many fundamental space physics phenomena including energetic particle acceleration. The mechanism of fast acceleration of energetic electrons in the radiation belt responding to interplanetary shock impacts consists of three contributing parts: (1) the initial adiabatic acceleration due to strong shock-related magnetic field compression; (2) followed by the drift-resonant acceleration with poloidal ULF waves excited at different L-shells; and (3) particle acceleration due to the quickly damping electric fields associated with ULF waves. Particles end up with a net acceleration because they gain more energy in the first half of this cycle than they lose in the second. The results reported in this paper cast a new light on understanding the acceleration of energetic particles in the Earth’s Van Allen radiation belt. The results of this study can likewise be applied to interplanetary shock interaction with other planets such as Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and other astrophysical objects with magnetic fields.     

Anti-planetward auroral electron beams at Saturn

Strong discrete aurorae on Earth are excited by electrons, which are accelerated along magnetic field lines towards the planet. Surprisingly, electrons accelerated in the opposite direction have been recently observed. The mechanisms and significance of this anti-earthward acceleration are highly uncertain because only earthward acceleration was traditionally considered, and observations remain limited. It is also unclear whether upward acceleration of the electrons is a necessary part of the auroral process or simply a special feature of Earth's complex space environment. Here we report anti-planetward acceleration of electron beams in Saturn's magnetosphere along field lines that statistically map into regions of aurora. The energy spectrum of these beams is qualitatively similar to the ones observed at Earth, and the energy fluxes in the observed beams are comparable with the energies required to excite Saturn's aurora. These beams, along with the observations at Earth and the barely understood electron beams in Jupiter's magnetosphere, demonstrate that anti-planetward acceleration is a universal feature of aurorae. The energy contained in the beams shows that upward acceleration is an essential part of the overall auroral process.     

北京大学超小型激光加速器系统研究进展

超强激光与等离子体相互作用可以获得高于传统加速器三个数量级以上的加速电场梯度,更加有效地加速离子,从而能够显著缩小加速器的体积和造价．鞘层加速（TNSA）和光压稳相加速（RPA）是目前研究得最多的两种主要激光加速机制．与鞘层加速相比,光压稳相加速的加速效率和离子能量更高、单能性更好．在提出光压稳相加速原理的基础上,北京大学正在建造一台基于该原理的超小型激光加速器系统．本文将介绍北京大学在激光加速研究方面的进展和激光加速器系统的研制情况,包括理论模拟、前期准备实验、自支撑纳米靶的制备以及离子输运线的初步设计．     

Intense plasma waves at and near the solar wind termination shock

Plasma waves are a characteristic feature of shocks in plasmas, and are produced by non-thermal particle distributions that develop in the shock transition layer. The electric fields of these waves have a key role in dissipating energy in the shock and driving the particle distributions back towards thermal equilibrium. Here we report the detection of intense plasma-wave electric fields at the solar wind termination shock. The observations were obtained from the plasma-wave instrument on the Voyager 2 spacecraft. The first evidence of the approach to the shock was the detection of upstream electron plasma oscillations on 1 August 2007 at a heliocentric radial distance of 83.4 au (1 au is the Earth-Sun distance). These narrowband oscillations continued intermittently for about a month until, starting on 31 August 2007 and ending on 1 September 2007, a series of intense bursts of broadband electrostatic waves signalled a series of crossings of the termination shock at a heliocentric radial distance of 83.7 au. The spectrum of these waves is quantitatively similar to those observed at bow shocks upstream of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.     

微波等离子体电子回旋共振放电粒子模拟分析

电子回旋共振放电产生的等离子体在微电子工业中材料加工、空间电推进方面有着广泛的应用。为了研究微波等离子体电子回旋共振的放电特性,使电子回旋共振放电产生的等离子体密度和能量转换效率更高,建立了微波等离子体电子回旋共振放电的1D3V模型,描述了带电粒子在外加静磁场、微波场共同作用下的微观运动。结果表明:微波频率为2.45 GHz时,随着静磁场磁感应强度的增加,平均电子能量先持续增大达到峰值,随后又不断地减小,且在0.087 5 T时电子加速效果最明显,结果符合电子的回旋频率公式,验证了该模型的正确性;共振区域内,发现在0.087 5 T磁感应强度下,微波频率为2.45 GHz下拟合的电子速度分布才与微波电场分布趋势相似,说明微波电场推动了电子运动。这为进一步研究微波等离子体放电的粒子模拟-蒙特卡罗碰撞模拟奠定了基础,也为进一步研究微波等离子体源中粒子产生效率及微波等离子体源的物理性质提供了重要参考。     

Plasma devices to guide and collimate a high density of MeV electrons

The development of ultra-intense lasers has facilitated new studies in laboratory astrophysics and high-density nuclear science, including laser fusion. Such research relies on the efficient generation of enormous numbers of high-energy charged particles. For example, laser-matter interactions at petawatt (10(15) W) power levels can create pulses of MeV electrons with current densities as large as 10(12) A cm(-2). However, the divergence of these particle beams usually reduces the current density to a few times 10(6) A cm(-2) at distances of the order of centimetres from the source. The invention of devices that can direct such intense, pulsed energetic beams will revolutionize their applications. Here we report high-conductivity devices consisting of transient plasmas that increase the energy density of MeV electrons generated in laser-matter interactions by more than one order of magnitude. A plasma fibre created on a hollow-cone target guides and collimates electrons in a manner akin to the control of light by an optical fibre and collimator. Such plasma devices hold promise for applications using high energy-density particles and should trigger growth in charged particle optics.     

Electron acceleration from contracting magnetic islands during reconnection

A long-standing problem in the study of space and astrophysical plasmas is to explain the production of energetic electrons as magnetic fields 'reconnect' and release energy. In the Earth's magnetosphere, electron energies reach hundreds of thousands of electron volts (refs 1-3), whereas the typical electron energies associated with large-scale reconnection-driven flows are just a few electron volts. Recent observations further suggest that these energetic particles are produced in the region where the magnetic field reconnects. In solar flares, upwards of 50 per cent of the energy released can appear as energetic electrons. Here we show that electrons gain kinetic energy by reflecting from the ends of the contracting 'magnetic islands' that form as reconnection proceeds. The mechanism is analogous to the increase of energy of a ball reflecting between two converging walls--the ball gains energy with each bounce. The repetitive interaction of electrons with many islands allows large numbers to be efficiently accelerated to high energy. The back pressure of the energetic electrons throttles reconnection so that the electron energy gain is a large fraction of the released magnetic energy. The resultant energy spectra of electrons take the form of power laws with spectral indices that match the magnetospheric observations.     

强激光脉冲在部分离化等离子体中的自聚焦

采用变分法推导出有限长激光脉冲在部分离化等离子体中的参数演化方程,其中包含群速度色散和自相位调制的影响,通过分析焦斑半径和脉冲宽度满足的耦合方程,详细讨论了等离子体密度对激光脉冲传播特性影响。研究结果表明:在部分离化等离子体中,对于给定强度的激光脉冲,随着等离子体密度增大,自相位调制会进一步增强激光脉冲的自聚焦;当等离子体密度增大时,激光脉冲传播频率由负向啁啾变化转变为正向啁啾频率变化,而且随着传播距离增大,激光脉冲红移减小而蓝移增大。研究结果对有限长激光脉冲电离诱导自注入加速电子的方案具有理论指导意义。     

Attosecond control of electrons emitted from a nanoscale metal tip

Attosecond science is based on steering electrons with the electric field of well controlled femtosecond laser pulses. It has led to the generation of extreme-ultraviolet pulses with a duration of less than 100 attoseconds (ref. 3; 1 as = 10(-18) s), to the measurement of intramolecular dynamics (by diffraction of an electron taken from the molecule under scrutiny) and to ultrafast electron holography. All these effects have been observed with atoms or molecules in the gas phase. Electrons liberated from solids by few-cycle laser pulses are also predicted to show a strong light-phase sensitivity, but only very small effects have been observed. Here we report that the spectra of electrons undergoing photoemission from a nanometre-scale tungsten tip show a dependence on the carrier-envelope phase of the laser, with a current modulation of up to 100 per cent. Depending on the carrier-envelope phase, electrons are emitted either from a single sub-500-attosecond interval of the 6-femtosecond laser pulse, or from two such intervals; the latter case leads to spectral interference. We also show that coherent elastic re-scattering of liberated electrons takes place at the metal surface. Owing to field enhancement at the tip, a simple laser oscillator reaches the peak electric field strengths required for attosecond experiments at 100-megahertz repetition rates, rendering complex amplified laser systems dispensable. Practically, this work represents a simple, extremely sensitive carrier-envelope phase sensor, which could be shrunk in volume to about one cubic centimetre. Our results indicate that the attosecond techniques developed with (and for) atoms and molecules can also be used with solids. In particular, we foresee subfemtosecond, subnanometre probing of collective electron dynamics (such as plasmon polaritons) in solid-state systems ranging in scale from mesoscopic solids to clusters and to single protruding atoms.     

双高斯空心光束的传输特性分析

对双高斯空心光束经非线性介质后传输和直接经自由空间传输的两种方式分别进行了数值模拟,研究了双高斯空心光束在两种介质中的传输特性.研究结果表明,双高斯空心光束具有稳定的近场传输特性,而在远场光束中心暗斑将消失,此时轴上的光强变为最大,且在中心边缘出现衍射环;同时在远场,经非线性介质后传输比直接在自由空间中传输的轴上光强增加更快.     

激光等离子体相互作用中产生的磁场与电子热传导

本文应用三维相对论电磁粒子模拟程序,研究超强超短脉冲激光与等离子体薄靶的相互作用中产生的磁场与电子热传导。研究结果表明,被激发的磁场使电子束在非常短的距离内沉积能量,同时对在激光有质动力推开电子时形成的电子热流产生抑制作用。对这些物理过程的细致研究对更好的理解快点火物理中自生磁场的产生,快电子输运等过程有重要意义。     

Investigating Galactic cosmic rays with γ-ray astronomy

Cosmic rays (CRs) are one of the most important components in the interstellar medium (ISM), and the origin of CRs remains a mystery. The diffusion of CRs in turbulent magnetic fields erases the information on the distribution of CR accelerators to a large extent. The energy dependent diffusion of CRs also significantly modifies the initial (acceleration) spectra of CRs. In this regard, γ-rays, the secondary products of interactions of CRs with gas and photons in the ISM, provide us with more information about the origin of CRs. More specifically, the γ-ray emissions associated with gas, can be used to study the distribution of CRs throughout the Galaxy; discrete γ-ray sources can elucidate the locations of individual CR accelerators. Here, the current status and prospects in these fields are reviewed.     

空气中产生太赫兹波过程有关离化机制的理论模拟

在利用光电流模型模拟空气中太赫兹辐射的过程中,飞秒激光首先将大气离化,离化后的电子在外场下加速,产生一定量的太赫兹波。当飞秒激光的能量达到一定强度时,离化过程变得复杂,可发生多阶离化,并在产生离子数中扮演重要角色,尤其是二阶离化作用突出。文章重点讨论二阶离化对产生离子数的贡献。