Phillip Sprangle

TL;DR: In this article, a nonlinear cold fluid model is formulated and used to analyze relativistic harmonic generation, and the plasma density response is included self-consistently and is shown to significantly reduce the current driving the harmonic radiation.

TL;DR: In this paper, a self-modulated laser wakefield accelerator (SM-LWFA) experiment was performed at the Naval Research Laboratory, where large amplitude plasma wakefields produced by a sub-picosecond, high intensity laser pulse (7×1018 W/cm2) in an underdense plasma (ne≈1019 cm−3) were measured with a pump-probe coherent Thomson scattering (CTS) technique to last for less than 5 ps.

TL;DR: The nonlinear interaction of ultraintense laser pulses with electron beams and plasmas is rich in a wide variety of new phenomena as discussed by the authors, including laser excitation of large-amplitude plasma waves (wake fields), relativistic optical guiding of laser pulses in preformed plasma channels, laser frequency amplification by ionization fronts and plasma waves, and stimulated backscattering from plasma and electron beams, and cooling of electron beams by intense lasers.

TL;DR: An envelope equation for the laser spot size is derived, using the source-dependent expansion method with Laguerre-Gaussian eigenfunctions, and reduced to quadrature, and indicates that a significant contraction of the spot size and a corresponding increase in intensity is possible.

TL;DR: An alternative configuration of the laser wake-field accelerator is proposed in which enhanced acceleration is achieved via resonant self-modulation of the lasers pulse, which requires laser power in excess of the critical power for relativistic guiding and a plasma wavelength short compared to the laser pulse length.