Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Density perturbations in a hydrogen-filled capillary discharge waveguide have been used to control the injection of electrons into a laser wakefield. This has allowed injection and acceleration in channels of lower density than previously possible, and the production of relativistic electron beams with improved stability. For parameters of optimum stability, the mean bunch energy was 300MeV +- 7 MeV rms, with divergence 1.3 mrad +- 0:1 mrad rms and pointing stability 0.8 mrad rms.