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Direct observation of relativistic broken plasma waves

Nature Physics volume 18, pages 1186–1190 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Plasma waves contribute to many fundamental phenomena, including astrophysics1, thermonuclear fusion2 and particle acceleration3. Such waves can develop in numerous ways, from classic Langmuir oscillations carried by electron thermal motion4, to the waves excited by an external force and travelling with a driver5. In plasma-based particle accelerators3,6, a strong laser or relativistic particle beam launches plasma waves with field amplitude that follows the driver strength up to the wavebreaking limit5,7, which is the maximum wave amplitude that a plasma can sustain. In this limit, plasma electrons gain sufficient energy from the wave to outrun it and to get trapped inside the wave bucket8. Theory and numerical simulations predict multi-dimensional wavebreaking, which is crucial in the electron self-injection process that determines the accelerator performances9,10. Here we present a real-time experimental visualization of the laser-driven nonlinear relativistic plasma waves by probing them with a femtosecond high-energy electron bunch from another laser-plasma accelerator coupled to the same laser system. This single-shot electron deflectometry allows us to characterize nonlinear plasma wakefield with femtosecond temporal and micrometre spatial resolutions revealing features of the plasma waves at the breaking point.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of the experimental set-up.
Fig. 2: Snapshot of a nonlinear plasma wake and the comparison with PIC simulations.
Fig. 3: The reaching of relativistic wavebreaking by increasing input laser energy.

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Data availability

Data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding authors. Source data are provided with this Paper.

Code availability

The codes that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by The Schwartz/Reisman Center for Intense Laser Physics, by a research grant from the Benoziyo Endowment Fund for the Advancement of Science, by the Israel Science Foundation, Minerva, Wolfson Foundation, the Schilling Foundation, R. Lapon, Dita and Yehuda Bronicki, and by the Helmholtz Association. The simulations were carried out at the Weizmann Institute’s EXAscale Cluster (WEXAC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Yang Wan, Omri Seemann, Sheroy Tata, Igor A. Andriyash, Slava Smartsev, Eyal Kroupp & Victor Malka

  2. Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée, École Polytechnique, ENSTA Paris, CNRS, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Palaiseau, France

    Igor A. Andriyash

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Contributions

Y.W. and V.M. conceived the idea and designed the set-up. Y.W., O.S. and S.T. carried out the experiment together, with support from S.S. and E.K. Y.W. analysed the data and performed the simulations with the help of I.A.A. Y.W., I.A.A. and V.M. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. V.M. provided overall guidance to the project.

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Correspondence to Yang Wan.

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Nature Physics thanks Alexander Pukhov, Anthony Gonsalves and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–6, simulation details on the annular ring formation in the probe image.

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Plot data for Fig. 2f,g.

Source Data Fig. 3

Plot data for Fig.3b.

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Wan, Y., Seemann, O., Tata, S. et al. Direct observation of relativistic broken plasma waves. Nat. Phys. 18, 1186–1190 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01717-6

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