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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Garrett, Travis, Pieronek, Christopher, Rockafellow, E., Sale, Oliver, Virani, Sahir, Shrock, J. E., Miao, B., Sloss, A., Elle, Jennifer, Milchberg, H. M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21503
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Table of Contents:
  • We have detected the presence of very high intensity surface waves that are excited during plasma waveguided laser wakefield acceleration. Wakefield acceleration can be enchanced by the introduction of an ``all optical" plasma waveguide that confines and guides a laser pulse at the optimal intensity over long distances, producing quasimonoenergetic multi-GeV electron bunches. However strong pulses of radio frequency radiation (RF) are also produced, and particle in cell simulations show why: a continuous stream of multi-MeV electrons are also ejected radially from the plasma due to nonlinear wave breaking, and these excite and copropagate coherently with a giant cylindrical Sommerfeld surface wave. Laboratory measurements, simulations, and analytic approximations all converge on a 20 J laser pulse exciting a 1 Joule, 400 GW broadband THz surface wave, with a peak electric field strength of 35 GV/m.