Optical modelling of shaped laser pulses in plasma

TL;DR

This paper reviews numerical methods for simulating ultrashort laser pulse propagation in plasmas, introduces an open-source toolkit Axiprop, and demonstrates its application in laser plasma acceleration studies.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive review of optical modelling methods, introduces the Axiprop simulation toolkit, and showcases its use in designing laser plasma acceleration experiments.

Findings

Axiprop enables detailed simulation of laser-plasma interactions.

The toolkit helps optimize energy deposition and wakefield properties.

Applications include plasma waveguide generation and flying-focus LPA.

Abstract

This work provides a brief review of the numerical methods for modelling the optical propagation of an ultrashort, intense laser pulse in plasmas and ionizable gases. These methods are implemented in an open-source simulation toolkit Axiprop, which is now actively used for design studies in the context of laser plasma acceleration of electrons (LPA). We present two examples of such studies: optical plasma waveguide generation, and phase-locked flying-focus LPA. These tools enable the identification of complex effects impacting both energy deposition during waveguide formation, and the pulse propagation dynamics that governs wakefield structure, ultimately determining the properties of the accelerated electron bunches. The developed tools and presented simulation designs are relevant to experiments on laser plasma interactions at modern high power laser facilities.