A New Scheme for High‐Intensity Laser‐Driven Electron Acceleration in a Plasma

Abstract

We propose a new approach to high-intensity laser-driven electron acceleration in a plasma. Here, we demonstrate that a plasma wave generated by a stimulated forward-scattering of an incident laser pulse can be in a longest acceleration phase with an incident laser wave. This is why the plasma wave has the maximum amplification coefficient which is determined by the breakdown (overturn) electric field in which the acceleration of injected relativistic beam electrons occurs. We estimate qualitatively the acceleration parameters of relativistic electrons in the field of a plasma wave generated at the stimulated forward scattering of a high-intensity laser pulse in a plasma.Keywords: High-intensity laser-driven plasma wakefield acceleration, Ultrarelativistic electron bunch, LaserPlasma interaction, Stimulated forward-scattering During the past few decades plasma accelerators have attracted increasing interest of scientists from all over the world due to its compactness, much cheaper construction costs compared to those for conventional one and various applications ranging from high energy physics to medical and industrial applications. An intense electromagnetic pulse can create a plasma oscillations through the stimulated scattering. Electrons trapped in the plasma wave can be accelerated to high energy.The idea to accelerate the charged particles in a plasma medium using collective plasma wave fields generated by the high-energy electron beams belongs to the Soviet physicists G. I. Budker, V. I. Veksler and Ia. B. Fainberg 1-3 in 1956, whereas assumptions for generation of plasma Langmuir waves by nonrelativistic electron bunches propagating through plasma were first made earlier in 1949 4,5 . High-energy bunch electrons generate a plasma wave in such a way that the energy from a bunch of electrons is transferred to the plasma wave through stimulated Cherenkov resonance radiation producing high acceleration electric fields. Later on, another acceleration scheme using a laser 6 or time-shifted sequence of bunched high-energy electrons injected into a cold plasma was proposed 7 . In recent experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center it was shown that an energy gain of more than 42 GeV was achieved in a meter long plasma wakefield accelerator, driven by a 42 GeV electron beam 8 . For a detailed review about the modern status of this research field we would like to refer a reader to 9,10 . However, the experiments of the 60s and 70s demonstrated that efficiency of acceleration using the highenergy beams is much less than the expected one and the generated field is much lower than a breakdown (overa) Electronic mail: rukh@fpl.gpi.ru b) Electronic mail: Corresponding author -s.sadykova@fz-juelich.de turn) electric field 11 :where e-electron charge, m -its mass, V p -plasma wave phase velocity, V p = ω p /k p c where k p -plasma wave vector, ω p -plasma frequency, ω p = 4πe 2 n e /m with n e being the electron density and m -its mass. The explanation for the experiments failure was given in the work 12 where ...

Excitation of upper‐hybrid plasma wake wave by a low‐frequency extraordinary electromagnetic wave

“…are the dimensionless group and phase velocity of the X-mode, respectively. In Equations (14) and (15), Ω h , Ω l and Ω c are the upper-hybrid, EM wave and cyclotron frequencies normalized by p . The other quantities rescaled as g = v g /c, = ( p /c) , p = ( p /c)L p , = (e/mc 2 ) and a = (e/mc )E. By solving Equation 14, Figure 3 we can obtain the evolution of the plasma wake generated by X-waves.…”

“…Wake field generation for the purpose of particle acceleration has been widely studied experimentally, analytically and using simulations. [1,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] Shukla investigated analytically the generation of wake fields by circularly [22] and elliptically [23] polarized laser pulses in magnetoplasma which is found that the presence of an external magnetic field can significantly enhance the strength of plasma wake waves. The effect of magnetic field on the wake field generation by laser pulses in R and L-modes has been also investigated in Reference 24.…”

Electron acceleration in a warm, motional, magnetized plasma‐filled waveguide by twisted electromagnetic wave pulses

“…[1] The advantage of using plasma for electron acceleration is the control of acceleration in these systems by using parameters such as temperature, density, magnetic field, and so forth. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] In this way, the mechanism of electron acceleration in the interaction of electromagnetic pulses with plasmas has been taken into consideration because of its relation to many potential applications such as inertial fusion, cutting in the industry, material surface analysis, fusion, [5] fission products, and electron welding.…”