Speaker
Description
We introduce an optimisation methodology for maximising secondary particle and radiation yields from laser–plasma accelerators. The approach is demonstrated using the recently proposed pump-
depletion–dominated laser wakefield acceleration regime [V. Horný et al., Phys. Rev. E 110,035202 (2024)] as a reference case. Particle-in-cell simulations of a 6 fs, 1.5 J laser pulse driving a plasma accelerator are coupled to FLUKA Monte Carlo modelling of a tungsten converter in a
two-stage workflow. Systematic scans of plasma length and converter thickness are combined with three optimisation algorithms, bench-marked against a conventional grid search. The methodology improves both accuracy and computational efficiency, offering a robust framework for tuning secondary sources. For the reference configuration, we obtain peak values of 7.6 × 10^8 neutrons per shot (detected immediately behind the converter) and ∼0.49 J of total photon energy, highlighting strong prospects for high-repetition-rate operation.
