Laser-plasma accelerator group

Abstract:

During the last few years laser-driven plasma accelerators have been shown to generate quasi-monoenergetic electron beams with energies up to several hundred MeV. Extending the output energy of laser-driven plasma accelerators to the GeV range requires operation at plasma densities an order of magnitude lower, i.e. 10(18) cm(-3), and increasing the distance over which acceleration is maintained from a few millimetres to a few tens of millimetres. One approach for achieving this is to guide the driving laser pulse in the plasma channel formed in a gas-filled capillary discharge waveguide. We present transverse interferometric measurements of the evolution of the plasma channel formed and compare these measurements with models of the capillary discharge. We describe in detail experiments performed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in which plasma accelerators were driven within this type of waveguide to generate quasi-monoenergetic electron beams with energies up to I GeV.

Abstract:

We report experimental results on laser-driven electron acceleration with low divergence. The electron beam was generated by focussing 750 mJ, 42 fs laser pulses into a gas-filled capillary discharge waveguide at electron densities in the range between 1018 and 1019cm-3. Quasi-monoenergetic electron bunches with energies as high as 500MeV have been detected, with features reaching up to 1 GeV, albeit with large shot-to-shot fluctuations. A more stable regime with higher bunch charge (20-45 pC) and less energy (200-300 MeV) could also be observed. The beam divergence and the pointing stability are around or below 1 mrad and 8 mrad, respectively. These findings are consistent with self-injection of electrons into a breaking plasma wave. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.

Abstract:

Forward jet cross sections have been measured in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at low Bjorken-x with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 81.8 pb-1. Measurements are presented for inclusive forward jets as well as for forward jets accompanied by a dijet system. The explored phase space, with jet pseudorapidity up to 4.3 is expected to be particularly sensitive to the dynamics of QCD parton evolution at low x. The measurements are compared to fixed-order QCD calculations and to leading-order parton-shower Monte Carlo models. © 2007 Springer-Verlag / Società Italiana di Fisica.

Abstract:

In order to extend the tracking acceptance, to improve the primary and secondary vertex reconstruction and thus enhancing the tagging capabilities for short lived particles, the ZEUS experiment at the HERA Collider at DESY installed a silicon strip vertex detector. The barrel part of the detector is a 63 cm long cylinder with silicon sensors arranged around an elliptical beampipe. The forward part consists of four circular shaped disks. In total just over 200k channels are read out using 2.9 m2 of silicon. In this report a detailed overview of the design and construction of the detector is given and the performance of the completed system is reviewed. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract:

The cross section for high-ET dijet production in photoproduction has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 81.8pb-1. The events were required to have a virtuality of the incoming photon, Q2, of less than 1GeV2 and a photon-proton center-of-mass energy in the range 14220GeV and ETjet2>15GeV and pseudorapidity (with respect to the proton beam direction) requirements of -1<ηjet1,2<3, with at least one of the jets satisfying -1<ηjet<2.5. The measurements show sensitivity to the parton distributions in the photon and proton and to effects beyond next-to-leading order in QCD. Hence these data can be used to constrain further the parton densities in the proton and photon. © 2007 The American Physical Society.