Observation of terahertz emission from a laser-plasma accelerated electron bunch crossing a plasma-vacuum boundary.
Coherent radiation in the 0.3-3 THz range has been generated from femtosecond electron bunches at a plasma-vacuum boundary via transition radiation. The bunches produced by a laser-plasma accelerator contained 1.5 nC of charge. The THz energy per pulse within a limited 30 mrad collection angle was 3-5 nJ and scaled quadratically with bunch charge, consistent with coherent emission. Modeling indicates that this broadband source produces about 0.3 microJ per pulse within a 100 mrad angle, and that increasing the transverse plasma size and electron beam energy could provide more than 100 microJ/pulse.

title: Generation of single pulse particle beams in a plasma channel by laser injection in laser wakefield accelerators
abstract: A laser injection mechanism that generates a single pulse, high quality beam is described. In the past, different all-optical injection schemes for the generation of ultrashort electron bunches were proposed. A very promising scheme proposed by E. Esarey [E. Esarey, R.F. Hubbard, W.P. Leemans A. Ting and P. Sprangle,"  (1997)] uses the collision of two counterpropagation laser pulses to inject particles. However, the results of ours 2D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations have shown that in addition to the bunch created by pulse collision, a train of pulses is also generated by a different mechanism. In this paper we show that is possible to achieve a single pulse, high quality beam if the generation of the plasma wakefield takes place in a channel and particles are injected by a phase-kick mechanism [J. Cary at this conference]. We have performed 2D PIC simulations of our proposed injection scheme using the code VORPAL [C. Nieter at this conference]. We have obtained a high quality 11 MeV., 6 fs. single electron bunch with energy spread of 4% and emittance of 0.01/spl pi/ - mm - mrad.

title: High Quality Electron Bunches up to 1 GeV from Laser Wakefield Acceleration at LBNL
abstract: Experiments at the LOASIS laboratory of LBNL have demonstrated production of 100 MeV to 1 GeV electron bunches with low energy spread and low divergence from laser wakefield acceleration. The radiation pressure of a 10 TW laser pulse, guided over 10 diffraction ranges by a few‐mm long plasma density channel, was used to drive an intense plasma wave (wakefield), producing electron bunches with energies on the order of 100 MeV and acceleration gradients on the order of 100 GV/m. Beam energy was increased from 100 MeV to 1 GeV by using a few‐cm long guiding channel at lower density, driven by a 40 TW laser, demonstrating the anticipated scaling to higher beam energies. Particle simulations indicate that the low energy spread beams were produced from self‐trapped electrons through the interplay of trapping, loading, and dephasing. Other experiments and simulations are also underway to control injection of particles into the wake, and hence improve beam quality and stability further.

title: Long-range persistence of femtosecond modulations on laser-plasma-accelerated electron beams.
abstract: Laser plasma accelerators have produced femtosecond electron bunches with a relative energy spread ranging from 100% to a few percent. Simulations indicate that the measured energy spread can be dominated by a correlated spread, with the slice spread significantly lower. Measurements of coherent optical transition radiation are presented for broad-energy-spread beams with laser-induced density and momentum modulations. The long-range (meter-scale) observation of coherent optical transition radiation indicates that the slice energy spread is below the percent level to preserve the modulations.

title: Mono-Energetic Beams from Laser Plasma Interactions
abstract: A laser driven wakefield accelerator has been tuned to produce high energy electron bunches with low emittance and energy spread by extending the interaction length using a plasma channel. Wakefield accelerators support gradients thousands of times those achievable in RF accelerators, but short acceleration distance, limited by diffraction, has resulted in low energy beams with 100% electron energy spread. In the present experiments on the L’OASIS laser, the relativistically intense drive pulse was guided over 10 diffraction ranges by a plasma channel. At a drive pulse power of 9 TW, electrons were trapped from the plasma and beams of percent energy spread containing > 200 pC charge above 80 MeV and with normalized emittance estimated at < 2 π-mm-mrad were produced. Data and simulations (VORPAL code) show the high quality bunch was formed when beam loading turned off injection after initial trapping, and when the particles were extracted as they dephased from the wake. Up to 4 TW was guided without trapping, potentially providing a platform for controlled injection. The plasma channel technique forms the basis of a new class of accelerators, with high gradients and high beam quality.

title: Design considerations for a laser‐plasma linear collider
abstract: Design considerations for a next‐generation electron‐positron linear collider based on laser‐plasma‐accelerators are discussed. Several of the advantages and challenges of laser‐plasma‐based accelerator technology are addressed. An example of the parameters for a 1 TeV laser‐plasma‐based collider is presented.

title: Maximum-likelihood approach to topological charge fluctuations in lattice gauge theory
abstract: We present a novel technique for the determination of the topological susceptibility (related to the variance of the distribution of global topological charge) from lattice gauge theory simulations, based on maximum-likelihood analysis of the Markov-chain Monte Carlo time series. This technique is expected to be particularly useful in situations where relatively few tunneling events are observed. Restriction to a lattice subvolume on which topological charge is not quantized is explored, and may lead to further improvement when the global topology is poorly sampled. We test our proposed method on a set of lattice data, and compare it to traditional methods.

title: QCD chiral transition, U(1)A symmetry and the dirac spectrum using domain wall fermions
abstract: We report on a study of the finite-temperature QCD transition region for temperatures between 139 and 196 MeV, with a pion mass of 200 MeV and two space-time volumes: $24^3\times8$ and $32^3\times8$, where the larger volume varies in linear size between 5.6 fm (at T=139 MeV) and 4.0 fm (at T=195 MeV). These results are compared with the results of an earlier calculation using the same action and quark masses but a smaller, $16^3\times8$ volume. The chiral domain wall fermion formulation with a combined Iwasaki and dislocation suppressing determinant ratio gauge action are used. This lattice action accurately reproduces the $\sua$ and $\ua$ symmetries of the continuum. Results are reported for the chiral condensates, connected and disconnected susceptibilities and the Dirac eigenvalue spectrum. We find a pseudo-critical temperature, $T_c$, of approximately 165 MeV consistent with previous results and strong finite volume dependence below $T_c$. Clear evidence is seen for $\ua$ symmetry breaking above $T_c$ which is quantitatively explained by the measured density of near-zero modes in accordance with the dilute instanton gas approximation.

title: Approaching Conformality with Ten Flavors
abstract: We present first results for lattice simulations, on a single volume, of the low-lying spectrum of an SU(3) Yang-Mills gauge theory with N{sub f} = 10 light fermions in the fundamental representation. Fits to the fermion mass dependence of various observables are found to be globally consistent with the hypothesis that this theory is within or just outside the strongly-coupled edge of the conformal window, with mass anomalous dimension {gamma}* {approx} 1 over the range of scales simulated. We stress that we cannot rule out the possibility of spontaneous chiral-symmetry breaking at scales well below our infrared cutoff. We discuss important systematic effects, including finite-volume corrections, and consider directions for future improvement.

title: Neutron-antineutron oscillations on the lattice
abstract: One possible low energy process due to beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics is the neutron-antineutron transition, where baryon number changes by two units. In addition to providing a source of baryon number violation in the early universe, interactions of this kind are natural in grand unified theories (GUTs) with Majorana neutrinos that violate lepton number. Bounds on these oscillations can greatly restrict a variety of GUTs, while a non-zero signal would be a "smoking gun" for new physics; however, to make a reliable prediction, the six-quark nucleon-antinucleon matrix elements must first be calculated non-perturbatively via lattice QCD. We review the current understanding of this quantity, describe the lattice formalism, and present preliminary results from $32^3\times256$ clover-Wilson lattices with a pion mass of 390 MeV.

title: Chiral symmetry breaking in nearly conformal gauge theories
abstract: We present new results on chiral symmetry breaking in nearly conformal gauge theories with fermions in the fundamental representation of the SU(3) color gauge group. The number of fermion flavors is varied in an extended range below the conformal window with chiral symmetry breaking ($\chi{\rm SB}$) for all flavors between $N_f=4$ and $N_f=12$. To identify $\chi{\rm SB}$ we apply several methods which include, within the framework of chiral perturbation theory, the analysis of the Goldstone spectrum in the p-regime and the spectrum of the fermion Dirac operator with eigenvalue distributions of random matrix theory in the $\eps$-regime. Chiral condensate enhancement is observed with increasing $N_f$ when the electroweak symmetry breaking scale $F$ is held fixed in technicolor language. Important finite-volume consistency checks from the theoretical understanding of the $SU(N_f)$ rotator spectrum of the $\delta$-regime are discussed. We also consider these gauge theories at $N_f=16$ inside the conformal window. The importance of understanding finite volume, zero momentum gauge field dynamics inside the conformal window is pointed out. Staggered lattice fermions with supressed taste breaking are used throughout the simulations.