Magnetically Controlled Optical Plasma Waveguide for Electron Acceleration

In order to produce multi-Gev electrons from Laser Wakefield Accelerators, we present a technique to guide high power laser beams through underdense plasma. Experimental results from the Jupiter Laser Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that show density channels with minimum plasma densities below 5x1017 cm-3 are presented. These results are obtained using an external magnetic field (<5 T) to limit the radial heat flux from a pre-forming laser beam. The resulting increased plasma pressure gradient produces a parabolic density gradient which is tunable by changing the external magnetic field strength. These results are compared with 1-D hydrodynamic simulations, while quasi-static kinetic simulations show that for these channel conditions 90% of the energy in a 150 TW short pulse beam is guided over 5 cm and predict electron energy gains of 3 GeV.