Laser wakefield electron acceleration on Texas petawatt facility: Towards multi-GeV electron energy in a single self-guided stage

Laser wakefield acceleration experiments with the 150 fs Texas Petawatt laser will be carried out in the unique regime with the shortest pulse duration among available petawatt facilities. Simulations via the time-averaged, fully relativistic, quasi-static 3D axi-symmetric particle-in-cell (PIC) code WAKE show that combination of nonlinear plasma wave focusing, relativistic self-focusing, and nonlinear temporal compression guide a 1.33 PW pulse over 10 cm of uniform plasmas. Self-guided TPW pulse has intensity above 10(19) W/cm(2) and drives the laser wakefield in the blowout regime in the plasma density range n(0) > 2 x 10(17) cm(-3). Both test-particle (WAKE) and full 3D PIC modelling (using recently developed quasi-cylindrical CALDER-Circ code) demonstrate robust electron self-injection in the first plasma wave bucket (bubble) during the periods of laser defocusing and bubble growth. Injection terminates as soon as the laser evolution stabilizes. As a result, quasi-monoenergetic acceleration of similar to 1.3 nC electron bunch to the 2.5-7 GeV is expected in 10-cm long plasmas. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.