Supra-bubble Regime for Laser Acceleration of Coldelectron Beams in Tenuous Plasma

Download or read book Supra-bubble Regime for Laser Acceleration of Coldelectron Beams in Tenuous Plasma written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relativistic electrons can be accelerated by an ultraintense laser pulse in the "supra-bubble" regime, that is, in the blow-out regime ahead of the plasma bubble (as opposed to the conventional method, when particles remain inside the bubble). The acceleration is caused by the ponderomotive force of the pulse, via the so-called snow-plow mechanism. The maximum energy gain, [Delta][gamma] ~ [gamma]g a, is attained when the particle Lorentz factor [gamma] is initially about [gamma]g/a, where [gamma]g is the pulse group speed Lorentz factor, and a is the laser parameter, proportional to the laser field amplitude. The scheme operates at a ≤ [gamma]g, yielding [Delta][gamma] of up to that via wakefield acceleration for the same plasma and laser parameters, [Delta][gamma] ~ [gamma]2g. The interaction length is shorter than that for the wake field mechanism but grows with the particle energy, hindering acceleration in multiple stages.