High-energy electron generation via laser wakefield acceleration

Kando, Masaki; Mori, Michiaki; Kotaki, Hideyuki; Hayashi, Yukio; Nishimura, Hiroaki*

This paper reports collaboration work between JAEA and Osaka University on the high energy electron acceleration using the LFEX laser. At JAEA we have examined the conditions for generating stable electrons with a 4-TW laser. We used Ar gas, which was found by us to produce stabler electrons and measured reproducibility at 4.0 TW and 3.6 TW. We found that there is a density threshold; the reproducibility becomes almost 100% when the density is larger than the threshold. We also noticed that the threshold value decreases as increasing the laser power. In addition, we report on the status of a sampling calorimeter, which will be used in the future laser acceleration experiments with LFEX.