26–31 Jul 2026
Luskin Conference Center, UCLA
US/Pacific timezone

Very high energy electrons from multi-Petawatt LWFA in a transitional regime

27 Jul 2026, 08:45
30m
Ballroom (Luskin Conference Center)

Ballroom

Luskin Conference Center

Invited plenary Invited Talks

Speaker

Calin Hojbota (The University of Texas at Austin)

Description

We present results from the ELI50122 campaign using the ELI-NP 10 PW beamline. We observed multi-PW-driven LWFA in a transitional regime where PWFA takes over the high-energy boosting stage. Using a nitrogen-doped helium gas at electron densities of 4-6 × 10¹⁷ cm⁻³ favored this transition, demonstrating beams of multi-nC charge with a clear dependence on the N₂ concentration.
The experimental results show energies of 8-10 GeV in a 15.5 cm gas cell and energy boosting following a switch to a 28 cm long acceleration medium. When the electron beam driver takes over the acceleration, we observe electron bunches peaking as high as 17.1 ± 2.0 GeV, with the tail extending beyond 20 GeV. The bunch had 22.1 ± 5.5 pC charge confined to a divergence below 1 mrad.
Total beam charge in this experiment reaches 3 nC above 2 GeV with >100 pC above 10 GeV in selected cases. The results represent a significant advance over past achievements in this field, doubling the maximum energy and obtaining 1.5-1.9× higher peaks for the bunches.

Working group WG1

Author

Calin Hojbota (The University of Texas at Austin)

Presentation materials