Identifying observable carrier-envelope phase effects in laser wakefield acceleration with near-single-cycle pulses

Abstract

Driving laser wakefield acceleration with extremely short, near single-cycle laser pulses is crucial to the realisation of an electron source that can operate at kHz-repetition rate while relying on modest laser energy. It is also interesting from a fundamental point of view, as the ponderomotive approximation is no longer valid for such short pulses. Through particle-in-cell simulations, we show how the plasma response becomes asymmetric in the plane of laser polarization, and dependent on the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of the laser pulse. For the case of self-injection, this in turn strongly affects the initial conditions of injected electrons, causing collective betatron oscillations of the electron beam. As a result, the beam pointing and electron energy spectrum become CEP-dependent. For injection in a density gradient these effects are reduced, as electron injection is mostly longitudinal and mainly determined by the density gradient. Our results highlight the importance of controlling the CEP in this regime for producing stable and reproducible relativistic electron beams. Mitigation of CEP effects can nevertheless be achieved using density gradient injection.