Target Plasma Generation for Plasma Acceleration and Associated Electromagnetic Pulse Dynamics

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The research enabled by this award will advance understanding of particle acceleration in plasmas driven by lasers. Laser-driven plasma acceleration holds out the promise of dramatic miniaturization and cost reduction of charged particle accelerators, which have uses in scientific discovery, homeland security, and medicine. The reduction in cost would broaden the availability of such accelerators to make them commonplace at individual universities and hospitals. This project will attempt to further reduce complexity of accelerators by using low-density plasmas to accelerate particles to higher energies. This would reduce the need for using multiple accelerators sequentially to get particles to higher energy. The project will also engage members of demographic groups historically under-represented in physics, increasing the number of role models for the next generations of aspiring plasma physics researchers.This project will enable a study of optical field ionization generated plasma channels for particle acceleration in Laser Wake-Field Acceleration (LWFA). LWFA accelerates electrons to high energies in short distances by exciting large electric field oscillations in a plasma with an intense laser pulse. The project will cover three aspects of LWFA: (1) accurate simulations of the plasma channel formation, (2) determination of the characteristics of the generated electromagnetic pulse, and (3) full and coupled simulations of wake-field acceleration with the evolving plasma channel. The full, coupled simulations of the laser accelerating pulse propagation through the evolving channel will create a tool to provide input into the development of future LWFA systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.