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Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) and its particle-driven counterpart, particle or plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA), are commonly treated as separate, though related, branches of high-gradient plasma-based acceleration. However, novel schemes at the interface of both concepts such as LWFA-PWFA staging have been evolving rapidly in recent years. Thanks to the high peak current of laser-accelerated electron beams these accelerators can operate at much higher density than conventionally seeded PWFAs, resulting in acceleration gradients on the order of 100 GV/m. These „miniature“ PWFAs can serve as model system for their larger conventional counterparts or, once combined with cold injection techniques, may serve as compact sources of energetic ultra-high brightness electron beams.
In this talk I will give an overview of LWFA and PWFA physics, and review first proof-of-principle experiments on hybrid accelerators [1-4]. I will then discuss challenges and opportunities of staging LWFA and PWFA, including recent results on stable electron beam injection in density downramps in a staged LWFA-PWFA at the Centre for Advanced Laser Applications near Munich.
[1] M. F. Gilljohann, et al. Direct Observation of Plasma Waves and Dynamics Induced by Laser-Accelerated Electron Beams, Phys. Rev. X 9, 011046 (2019)
[2] J. Götzfried, et al. Physics of High-Charge Electron Beams in Laser-Plasma Wakefields, Phys. Rev. X 10, 041015 (2020)
[3] G. Raj, et al. Probing ultrafast magnetic-field generation by current filamentation instability in femtosecond relativistic laser-matter interactions, Phys. Rev. Research 2, 023123 (2020)
[4] T. Kurz et al., Demonstration of a compact plasma accelerator powered by laser- accelerated electron beams, Nature Communications, 12, Article number: 2895 (2021)