Particle Physics Seminar: Coherent Wake Emission in the diffraction limit

Abstract:

Ultra-intense laser-plasma interaction  generates various types of high-energy radiation. It also drives highly non-linear optical systems, referred to as relativistic optics. The plasma mirror (PM) – a sharp, dense, light-reflecting plasma surface - is an ideal model system to study relativistic optics, emphasizing rich physics on the simplest geometry. Under certain irradiation conditions, PMs generate intense attosecond extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light pulses, in processes known as relativistic oscillating mirror (ROM) and coherent wake emission (CWE). These processes have caught much attention in the past decade, putting relativistic PMs as a promising next-generation EUV source, unbounded in brightness and band-width.

CWE has been previously characterized by its intrinsic intensity-dependent phase accumulation, resulting with high spatial divergence that limits its applicativity. However, the study of CWE dynamics so far treated the plasma as a 1D system, neglecting the 3D nature of plasma hydrodynamics prior to the main interaction. I will show that by accounting for the transverse variations of the plasma expansion, a complete cancelation of the CWE intrinsic phase may be reached. Accordingly, we experimentally demonstrate nearly diffraction limited CWE with unprecedented divergence, and validate our analytical model with particle-in-cell simulations.

Seminar Organizers: Prof. Erez Etzion & Dr. Liron Barak