Note: Low density and long plasma channels generated by laser transversely ignited ablative capillary discharges

A technique is developed to reduce the jitter associated with ablative capillary discharges. A laser pulse propagating perpendicularly to the axis of the capillary and focused onto a copper wire creates a plasma that initiates the discharge. This transverse laser ignition method has several advantages over previous techniques employing a laser pulse collinear with the capillary, including increased capillary lifetime and simpler arrangement of the igniting and the driving pulses for laser-wakefield acceleration. Using this technique long, low density plasma channels are produced with low jitter.