The fundamental idea of Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA) is reviewed. An ultrafast intense laser pulse drives coherent wakefield with a relativistic amplitude robustly supported by the plasma. While the large amplitude of wake-fields involves collective resonant oscillations of the eigenmode of the entire plasma electrons, the wake phase velocity ∼ c and ultrafastness of the laser pulse introduce the wake stability and rigidity. A large number of worldwide experiments show a rapid progress of this concept realization toward both the high-energy accelerator prospect and broad applications. The strong interest in this has been spurring and stimulating novel laser technologies, including the Chirped Pulse Amplification, the Thin Film Compression, the Coherent Amplification Network, and the Relativistic Mirror Compression. These in turn have created a conglomerate of novel science and technology with LWFA to form a new genre of high field science with many parameters of merit in this field increasing exponentially lately. This science has triggered a number of worldwide research centers and initiatives. Associated physics of ion acceleration, X-ray generation, and astrophysical processes of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays are reviewed. Applications such as X-ray free electron laser, cancer therapy, and radioisotope production etc. are considered. A new avenue of LWFA using nanomaterials is also emerging.

中文翻译：

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激光加速

回顾了激光韦克菲尔德加速（LWFA）的基本思想。超快的强激光脉冲以相对论的振幅强劲地支持等离子体，从而驱动相干尾波场。虽然较大的唤醒场振幅涉及整个等离子电子的本征模态的集体共振振荡，但唤醒相速度〜c激光脉冲的超牢度引入了唤醒稳定性和刚度。全世界范围内的大量实验表明，这一概念的实现在向高能加速器和广泛应用方面都取得了飞速发展。对此的强烈兴趣是刺激和刺激了新颖的激光技术，包括the脉冲放大，薄膜压缩，相干放大网络和相对论镜面压缩。这些反过来又与LWFA创建了一个新的科学技术集团，形成了一种高领域科学的新体裁，该领域中的许多优点参数最近呈指数增长。这种科学引发了许多全球研究中心和倡议。离子加速，X射线产生，并回顾了超高能宇宙射线的天文学过程。考虑了诸如X射线自由电子激光，癌症治疗和放射性同位素生产等应用。使用纳米材料的LWFA的新途径也正在兴起。