Laser Wakefield Acceleration Platform for OMEGA EP*

Recently there has been interest in picosecond-scale, kilojoule-class lasers to drive a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) in the self-modulated regime to produce betatron x-ray sources.[1] Such a platform would enable betatron x-ray sources that could be coupled with large-scale lasers such as the OMEGA laser at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) or the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Here, we report on recent efforts to develop a LWFA platform for the OMEGA EP laser at LLE. A new gas-jet system that can provide underdense plasma targets for OMEGA and OMEGA EP has been fielded and characterized. Efforts to extend the focal length of OMEGA EP to larger f#’s will be discussed. We will show preliminary results investigating LWFA driven by OMEGA EP.

[1] F. Albert et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 134801 (2017).