Investigation of electron acceleration in a perpendicularly magnetized plasma wave

Abstract

Electron acceleration is investigated in a plasma wake generated via the interaction of a high-intensity laser pulse with the plasma in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field. For this purpose, using the Maxwell equation, the wakefield profile in the perpendicularly magnetized plasma is obtained and then using the magnetized wakefied the electron energy and momentum equations are numerically solved. It turns out that the electron acceleration in a magnetized wake having a different profile than unmagnetized one increases with the perpendicular magnetic field strength so that in presence of a magnetic field with a strong enough amplitude the acceleration goes beyond the resonance regime. The numerical results demonstrate that the electron could be significantly accelerated in a low-amplitude laser-driven wake in presence of an external perpendicular magnetic field which can be superseded the high-amplitude laser-driven wake acceleration regime. Furthermore, we concluded in such systems that the electron acceleration is drastically sensitive to amplitude and initial phase of the wakefield as well as the initial energy of the electron.