Generation of Preformed Plasma Channel for GeV-Scaled Electron Accelerator by Ablative Capillary Discharges

Generation of plasma channels by low jitter ablative capillary discharges is investigated experimentally in details. A time-resolved evolution and radial distributions of the electron density are measured, and proof-of-principle optical guiding experiment is conducted. A proper time window for optical guiding of a femtosecond laser pulse is found. The generated low density, long plasma channel is believed to be useful in the applications as GeV-class channel-guided laser wakefield accelerators and compact X-ray femetosecond coherent radiation sources.