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  • Letter
  • Open Access

First electron acceleration in a tunable-velocity laser wakefield

Aaron Liberman*,†, Anton Golovanov*, Slava Smartsev*, Anda-Maria Talposi*, Sheroy Tata, and Victor Malka‡

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: aaronrafael.liberman@weizmann.ac.il
  • ‡Contact author: victor.malka@weizmann.ac.il
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, L022001 – Published 1 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/x5pr-mdvj

Abstract

We present the first experimental confirmation that a laser-wakefield accelerator produced by a flying focus pulse is able to maintain the coherent structures necessary to accelerate electrons to relativistic energies. Through a combination of spatiotemporal near-field shaping of the beam and focusing with an axiparabola—a long-focal-depth mirror that produces a quasi-Bessel beam—the propagation velocity of the wakefield is tuned to control the maximum electron energy achievable. The experimental data are supported by advanced optical and particle-in-cell simulations and are aligned with a simplified analytical model. Together, the results significantly strengthen the case for the flying-focus wakefield as a strategy for mitigating dephasing in laser-wakefield acceleration.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, L022001– Published 1 April, 2026
  • Received 25 September 2025
  • Accepted 8 March 2026
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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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