Electron Rephasing in a Truncated Tunable Plasma Channel
We report the acceleration of stable electron beams with energies up to 1.5 GeV using a 50 TW laser pulse guided in a preformed plasma channel generated by an axiparabola-focused heater pulse. Varying the channel length changes the plasma density beyond the channel end and produces distinct electron spectra. A short channel causes a large decrease in bubble size after the truncated channel, leaving only part of the electron bunch in the accelerating phase and resulting in a quasi-monoenergetic peak. For a longer channel ending near the target density down-ramp, the smaller density increase rephases and further accelerates a larger fraction of the bunch, producing a continuous high-charge spectrum. Hydrodynamic and particle-in-cell simulations reproduce the observed spectral evolution. Together, the measurements and simulations identify channel length as a key control parameter in guided laser-wakefield acceleration.