Generation of attosecond electron bunches by the relativistic Weibel instability

Abstract

The relativistic Weibel instability and temperature anisotropy can generate electron bunches of attosecond duration which makes it an attractive method for the generation and amplification of tunable ultrashort pulses. In this paper, the effect of the relativistic Weibel instability and temperature anisotropy on generating attosecond electron bunches is investigated. Calculations show that with the reduction relativistic parameter, γ, by a factor of 2, increasing 14.6% of the relativistic Weibel instability leads to about 62% reduction of the nanobunching gain saturation time and the density perturbation generated by the temperature anisotropy and the relativistic Weibel instability. The nanobunching density perturbation has a maximum value corresponding to 2.12 × 1037 for wavenumber kc/ωpe = 1.33 and γ = 3. Evidence of ultrashort electron bunches could be applied to attosecond electron and coherent x-ray production.