Laser-plasma accelerators

Friday 05/03/2010 14:30

For this week’s colloquium, on Friday 5th March, we’re delighted that Simon Hooker of the University of Oxford will talk about ‘Laser-driven plasma accelerators’. This colloquium will be of very general interest, and undergraduates will, as always, be most welcome.

Electrons are pushed away from the front and back of a high-intensity laser pulse as it propagates through a plasma, leading to the formation of a plasma wave which trails the laser pulse. The longitudinal electric field within this wave can be as high as 100 GV/m ? more than three orders of magnitude larger than that found in the RF accelerators used at synchrotron and particle accelerator facilities around the world. Laser-driven plasma accelerators are therefore able to accelerate particles to high energies in a fraction of the length required with conventional technology, and in the longer term may offer a way to reach energies beyond those possible with current technology.

Prof Hooker will describe the operation of laser-driven plasma accelerators and discuss the factors which limit the beam energy that they can reach. He will present the results of several experiments, including recent experiments with the Astra-Gemini laser, in which electron beams were generated with energies up to 1 GeV. He will also discuss the application of laser-driven plasma accelerators to the generation of tunable femtosecond-duration x-ray pulses, as well as their potential for reaching energies significantly beyond the GeV range.

This will be at 2.30pm in the seminar room, Tea and cakes afterwards. Programme online.

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