Alexander Picksley (LBNL): Compact all-optical plasma accelerators: From 10GeV electrons to future applications

Wednesday 25 Feb 2026, 12:45 → 14:00 US/Eastern

D-122 (SBU Physics building)

Elizabeth Worcester, Valerio Dao (Stony Brook University)

Laser-driven plasma accelerators (LPAs) offer a pathway to compact, high-gradient alternatives to conventional RF accelerators. Their ability to produce bright, ultrashort electron beams in centimeter-scale structures makes them promising drivers for applications ranging from high-energy physics to next-generation light sources. This talk will highlight developments in using all-optical plasma channels [1-4] to meet key criteria of applications, including the recent P5 report on future colliders. I will discuss the acceleration of high-quality electron beams beyond 10 GeV using petawatt-class laser pulses guided through 30-cm-long, low-density plasma waveguides [1]. Using a new method to control the waveguide length on a shot-by-shot basis, we gained unprecedented insight into the physics of ultrashort, petawatt laser propagation through plasma waveguides, directly observing high order mode excitation and filtering, non-linear depletion of laser energy to the plasma, and laser pulse steepening. Secondly, I will discuss how imposing greater control over the plasma channel can address key issues for applications of LPAs: electron beam quality and laser-to-beam efficiency. I will show experiments at the 100 TW level at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, where injection was controlled by shaping the entrance of the plasma channel to generate GeV beams with per-mille-level slice energy spread [5]. Together, these advances represent critical steps toward compact accelerators that can drive the next generation of colliders and light sources.

 

[1] A. Picksley et al., Phys. Rev. Lett (2024)

[2] R. Shalloo et al., Phys. Rev. E (2018)

[3] A. Picksley et al., Phys. Rev. E (2020)

[4] L. Feder et al., Phys. Rev. Research (2020)

[5] A. Picksley et al., Phys. Rev. Lett (2023)

12:45 → 13:30 TBC