Elongation of plasma channel for electron acceleration

Chen, L.-M.; Nakajima, Kazuhisa; Hong, W.*; Hua, J. F.*; Kameshima, Takashi; Kotaki, Hideyuki; Sugiyama, Kiyohiro*; Wen, X.*; Wu, Y.*; Tang, C.*; Gu, Y.*; Peng, H. S.*; Kurokawa, Shinichi*; Koga, J. K.; Bulanov, S. V.; Tajima, Toshiki

Experiments for the laser guiding studies has been carried out with the 30 fs, 100 TW laser pulse interaction with the long slab and discharged capillary of underdense plasma. Formation of extremely long plasma channel with its length 10 times above the Rayleigh length is observed when the laser pulse power is much higher than the critical power for relativistic self-focusing. The long self-guiding channel formation is accompanied by the quasi-monoenergetic electron acceleration with a low transverse emittance and high electric current (10 nC/shot). In order to continuously elongate plasma channel, a 4 cm-scale discharged capillary was used. We successfully demonstrated laser-plasma acceleration of high-quality electron beams up to nearly GeV. Our results exactly verified the prediction of laser-wakefield acceleration through a cm-scale plasma channel in the blowout bubble regime.