Effect of Shaped High-intensity Short-Pulses on Particle Acceleration

While much of high-intensity short-pulse laser-driven particle acceleration experiments typically focus on increasing energy through increased intensity, only limited attention has been paid to the time-dependent intensity profile. Real short-pulses contain familiar structures such as pre-pulses and pedestals, however, the same laser technology used to make the primary pulse Gaussian-like can also be used to modify the temporal intensity profile. While research with multiple short-pulses has shown significant benefits to proton acceleration, this work extends this concept to more complex intensity profiles with proof-of-principle experiments. Techniques for generating multiple short pulses or shaping at the femtosecond level were used to drive MeV particle sources from solid targets at the CSU ALEPH facility. The effect of such pulses on electron and proton acceleration will be discussed with comparisons to new many-simulation techniques for exploring this vast parameter space and examining the time-dependent particle acceleration.