• E. Cormier-Michel, E. Esarey, C.G.R. Geddes, W. Leemans, C.B. Schroeder
  LBNL, Berkeley, California
• D.L. Bruhwiler, B.M. Cowan, K. Paul
  Tech-X, Boulder, Colorado

Laser plasma generated wakefields sustain accelerating gradient a thousand times higher than conventional accelerators, allowing acceleration of electron beams to high energy over short distances. Recently, experiments have demonstrated the production of high quality electron bunches at 1GeV within only a few centimeters. We present simulations, with the VORPAL framework, of the next generation of experiments, likely to use externally injected beams and accelerate them in a meter long 10 GeV laser plasma accelerator stage, which will operate in the quasi-linear regime where the acceleration of electrons and positrons is nearly symmetric. We will show that by using scaling of the physical parameters it is possible to perform fully consistent particle-in-cell simulations at a reasonable cost. These simulations are used to design efficient stages. In particular, we will show that we can use higher order laser modes to tailor the focusing forces, which play an important role in determining the beam quality. This makes it possible to increase the matched electron beam radius and hence the total charge in the bunch while preserving the low bunch emittance required for applications.