Abstract
Autoresonance laser acceleration of electrons is theoretically investigated using circularly polarized focused Gaussian pulses. Many-particle simulations demonstrate feasibility of creating over 10-GeV electron bunches of ultra-high quality (relative energy spread of order 10^-4), suitable for fundamental high-energy particle physics research. The laser peak intensities and axial magnetic field strengths required are up to about 10^18 W/cm^2 (peak power ~10 PW) and 60 T, respectively. Gains exceeding 100 GeV are shown to be possible when weakly focused pulses from a 200-PW laser facility are used.
Highlights
Particle accelerators are an indispensable tool to explore the fundamental laws of nature and are widely used for medical and industrial applications
The creation of a plasma wave from interaction with a highly energetic electron beam as a driver allows for doubling the kinetic energy of the accelerated particles within a meter-scale plasma wakefield accelerator [14,15,16]
To decide the order of the correction terms, beyond the paraxial approximation, which ought to be retained in the various field expressions, simulations have been performed for a single electron injected axially with 50 MeV initial kinetic energy
Summary
Particle accelerators are an indispensable tool to explore the fundamental laws of nature and are widely used for medical and industrial applications. The advent of quasistatic magnetic fields [17,18,19,20,21] of durations up to seconds, with strengths as high as 100 Tesla, suggests vacuum autoresonance laser acceleration (ALA) (see [22,23] and references therein) as a further potential alternative to conventional acceleration. The underlying concept of ALA stems from the realization that an electron continues to absorb energy from a circularly polarized laser field if it is launched in cyclotron. Feasibility of postacceleration of electrons to kinetic energies of about 3 times their initial energies has been theoretically investigated, employing continuous-wave CO2 laser fields described within the paraxial approximation [24]. For magnetic field strengths below 60 Tesla, energy gains in excess of 10 GeV are shown to be possible. Our work is motivated by currently feasible magnetic fields of strength of the order of 100 Tesla [17,18] and anticipates continued progress in high magnetic field research
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
