Laser-Plasma Accelerator: status and perspectives
Abstract
Laser plasma accelerators deliver high charge quasi-monoenergetic electron beams with properties of interest for many applications, including material science, medicine, chemistry and accelerators physics.
In addition, injecting existing electron beams into a longer plasma wave structure will extend their energy to the GeV range while reducing the relative bandwidth below 1 %.
A GeV laser based accelerator scheme is presented; it consists on the acceleration of this electron beam into relativistic plasma waves driven by laser. This compact approach (cm scale for the plasma, and tens of meters for the whole facility) will allow a miniaturization and cost reduction of future accelerators and derived X-rays free electron laser sources (XFEL).
I will present here a review of laser plasma accelerator technology, its potential applications as well as near and long term perspectives.
