JACoW is a publisher in Geneva, Switzerland that publishes the proceedings of accelerator conferences held around the world by an international collaboration of editors.
TY - UNPB AU - Meir, T. AU - Arefiev, A.V. AU - Cohen, I. AU - Cohen, T. AU - Perelmutter, L. AU - Pomerantz, I. AU - Tangtartharakul, K. ED - Braun, Hans-Heinrich ED - Chrin, Jan ED - Ganter, Romain ED - Hiller, Nicole ED - Schaa, Volker RW TI - A Compton Light Source Based on Counter Propagating Direct Laser Acceleration Channels J2 - Proc. of FLS2023, Luzern, Switzerland, 27 August-01 September 2023 CY - Luzern, Switzerland T2 - ICFA Advanced Beam Dynamics Workshop T3 - 67 LA - english AB - For the past two decades, intense lasers have supported new schemes for generating high-energy particle beams in university-scale laboratories. With the direct laser acceleration (DLA) method, the leading part of the laser pulse ionizes the target material and forms a positively charged ion plasma channel into which electrons are injected and accelerated. A striking feature of DLA is the extremely high conversion efficiency from laser energy to MeV electrons, with reported values as high as 23%, which makes this mechanism ideal for generating large numbers of photo-nuclear reactions. DLA is well understood and reproduced in numeric simulations. However, the electron energies obtained with the highest laser intensities available nowadays, fail to meet numerical predictions. In an experimental campaign, followed by a numerical investigation, we revealed that at these higher laser intensities, the leading edge of the laser pulse may deplete the target material of its ionization electrons prematurely. We demonstrated that for efficient DLA to prevail, a target material of sufficiently high atomic number is required to maintain the injection of ionization electrons at the peak intensity of the pulse when the DLA channel is already formed. I will present a numerical study on employing this new understanding for realizing a high brightness Compton light source in two counter-propagating DLA channels. Our 3D particle-in-cell results indicate small cone-angle photon emission in the multi 10s of keV spectral range, with few-fs duration and micron-scale source size. PB - JACoW Publishing CP - Geneva, Switzerland ER -