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  • Open Access

Correlated x-ray and electron beam steering by pulse-front tilt in laser wakefield acceleration

Erik Löfquist, Cornelia Gustafsson, Andrea Angella, Anders Persson, and Olle Lundh*

  • Division of Atomic Physics, Department of Physics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

  • *Contact author: olle.lundh@fysik.lu.se.
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Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 28, 102802 – Published 30 October, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/cq83-8kfb

Abstract

Laser wakefield accelerators produce ultrashort, highly relativistic electron and x-ray pulses in plasma over millimeter distances. Crucial for investigations and applications of these pulses is a reproducible and controlled output beam pointing. Even with a perfectly stable laser, pulse-front tilt in the driving laser pulse has been shown to cause both the laser pulse and the electron beam to deviate differently from the optical axis after the plasma. We show that this steering also extends to the generated x-rays, but in such a way that they perfectly follow the electron beam. The electron beam or x-ray beam pointing can thus be noninvasively inferred from the other, even when pulse-front-tilt steering is present. This enables active stabilization of either beam, without significant impact on key beam parameters such as energy, charge, and divergence.

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Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 28, 102802– Published 30 October, 2025
  • Received 27 June 2025
  • Accepted 10 October 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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