Electron self-injection and acceleration in a hollow plasma channel driven by ultrashort intense laser pulses**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11147005, 61665006, and 61865011) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province of China (Grant Nos. 20151BAB202018, 20161BAB212041, and 20162BCB23012).

Abstract

The self-injection and acceleration of electrons in a hollow plasma channel driven by ultrashort intense laser pulses is investigated by Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations. It is shown that electrons from the bubble sheath will be self-injected into the hollow plasma channel and move radially towards the channel border due to the lack of focusing force in the hollow plasma channel. After several reflections near the channel wall by the strong focusing force, a self-injected electron bunch can be confined in the hollow plasma channel and quasi-phase-stably accelerated forward for the whole laser–plasma interaction process. These electrons using optical and plasma-related self-injection method can be self-organized to remain in the rear of the bubble, where the accelerating electric field is transversely uniform and nearly plateau along the propagation axis. Therefore, the self-injected electron bunch can be accelerated in a steady state without obvious oscillation and has a high quality with narrow energy spread and low divergence.