Tomographic reconstruction algorithms for structured gas density profiles of the targets for laser wakefield acceleration

The output of a laser wakefield accelerator depends strongly on the density profile of the gas target. In this work we focus on the reconstruction of 3D density profiles from tomographic measurements. We compare analytical and iterative methods, and we propose a new one, the filtered algebraic reconstruction method (FARM), which is tailored for the reconstruction of gas targets for laser wakefield acceleration. Several methods are tested on both simplified and realistic geometries. The algorithms are evaluated in terms of the quality of the density profile reconstruction, the number of projections needed and the computation time required.