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X-ray sources from laser-plasma acceleration on picosecond, kilojoule-class lasers (Conference Presentation)

Plasma-based particle accelerators are now able to provide the scientific community with novel light sources. Their applications span many disciplines, including high energy density sciences, where they can be used as probes to explore the physics of dense plasmas and warm dense matter. The development and improvement of these light sources continues to be of great interest for the plasma physics community. This talk will present their experimental and theoretical characterization in a regime where little is known about their properties. In Self-modulated laser wakefield acceleration (SMLWFA), electrons are accelerated in a plasma wave driven by a long laser pulse broken up into a train of short pulses, each of these having a width on the order of a plasma period. Our recent experimental and theoretical work shows that we can use three mechanisms to produce high energy x-rays and gamma-rays from SMLWFA: Betatron motion of electrons, Bremsstrahlung, and inverse Compton scattering. A series of experiments at the LLNL Jupiter Laser Facility, using the 1 ps 150 J Titan laser, have demonstrated low divergence electron beams with energies up to more than 300 MeV and 10’s nCs of charge, and betatron x-rays with critical energies up to 20 keV. These experiments have led to important advances in understanding the details of the x-ray generating mechanisms and some of the most detailed characterization of the associated x-ray emission. New experiments have demonstrated using Compton scattering and Bremsstrahlung to generate >100 keV x-rays. This study presents the results of several highly successful experiments and associated theory and provides important understanding of these three sources. This work is an important step toward their development on large-scale international laser facilities, and also opens the prospect of using them for applications.