Laser-driven plasma-based accelerators: Wakefield excitation, channel guiding, and laser triggered particle injection

Plasma-based accelerators are discussed in which high-power short pulse lasers are the power source, suitably tailored plasma structures provide guiding of the laser beam and support large accelerating gradients, and an optical scheme is used to produce time-synchronized ultrashort electron bunches. From scaling laws laser requirements are obtained for development of compact high-energy accelerators. Simulation results of laser guiding and wakefield excitation in plasma channels, as well as laser-based injection of particles into a plasma wake, are presented. Details of the experimental program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on laser guiding, laser wakefield-based accelerators, and laser triggered injection are given.