Laser wakefield acceleration experiments at the university of Michigan

Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) in a supersonic gas‐jet using a self‐guided laser pulse was studied by changing the laser power and electron density. The recently upgraded HERCULES laser facility equipped with wavefront correction enables a peak intensity of 8×1019 W/cm2 at laser power of 100 TW to be delivered to the gas‐jet using f/10 focusing optics. We found that electron beam charge was increased significantly with an increase of the laser power from 30 TW to 80 TW and showed density threshold behavior at a fixed laser power. Betatron motion of electrons was also observed depending on laser power and electron density.