Enhanced energy loss of short pulses of electrons in plasma

Abstract

The enhancement of energy loss of short pulses of electrons in plasma has been experimentally observed. An enhancement of up to 3.5×104 over single-particle losses was observed when a 15 ps electron bunch was injected into a preformed target plasma with an electron density of approximately 1013 cm−3. This matches the theoretical prediction that the energy loss should be enhanced when the temporal duration of the electron bunch is approximately equal to π/ωpe, where ωpe is the plasma frequency of the target plasma. 2D numerical simulations are in good agreement with the observations.