Experimental generation of PW peak power, extreme electron beams for advanced accelerator applications

In this contribution we report on the experimental generation of high energy (10 GeV), ultra-short (fs-duration), ultra-high current (0.1 MA) electron beams with PW peak beam power in a particle accelerator. These extreme beams enable the exploration of a new frontier of high intensity beam-light and beam-matter interactions broadly relevant across fields ranging from laboratory astrophysics to strong field quantum electrodynamics and ultra-fast quantum chemistry. We demonstrate our ability to generate and control the properties of these electron beams through the use of a laser heater, which exploits the coherent interaction between a laser pulse and an electron beam in a magnetic undulator to shape the electron beam distribution. By tailoring the properties of the laser heater, it is possible to modulate the beam's current profile on-demand, enabling the generation of ultra-high current designer electron beams tuned for specific applications. We characterize the charge, peak current, and temporal duration of these high current beams and show that we can utilize them to trigger and control the onset of beam-induced ionization of gas targets broadly relevant to advanced accelerator applications. Finally, we demonstrate our ability to control the amplitude and temporal location of the current spike in the beam by varying the shaping laser parameters. This experimental demonstration opens the door to on-the-fly customization of extreme beam current profiles for desired experiments and is poised to benefit a broad swathe of cross-cutting applications of relativistic electron beams.