title: Field-reversed bubble in deep plasma channels for high-quality electron acceleration.
abstract: We study hollow plasma channels with smooth boundaries for laser-driven electron acceleration in the bubble regime. Contrary to the uniform plasma case, the laser forms no optical shock and no etching at the front. This increases the effective bubble phase velocity and energy gain. The longitudinal field has a plateau that allows for monoenergetic acceleration. We observe as low as 10⁻³ rms relative witness beam energy uncertainty in each cross section and 0.3% total energy spread. By varying the plasma density profile inside a deep channel, the bubble fields can be adjusted to balance the laser depletion and dephasing lengths. Bubble scaling laws for the deep channel are derived. Ultrashort pancakelike laser pulses lead to the highest energies of accelerated electrons per Joule of laser pulse energy.
authors.affiliation: Institut fuer Theoretische Physik I, Universitaet Duesseldorf, Dusseldorf 40225, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pukhov
authors.affiliation: Institut fuer Theoretische Physik I, Universitaet Duesseldorf, Dusseldorf 40225, Germany.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Jansen
authors.affiliation: Institut fuer Theoretische Physik I, Universitaet Duesseldorf, Dusseldorf 40225, Germany.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tueckmantel
authors.affiliation: Institut fuer Theoretische Physik I, Universitaet Duesseldorf, Dusseldorf 40225, Germany.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.affiliation: Lobachevsky National Research University of Nizhni Novgorod, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia and Institute of Applied Physics RAS, Nizhny Novgorod 603950, Russia.
authors.forename: I Yu
authors.initials: IY
authors.lastname: Kostyukov