Laser acceleration of electrons in vacuum up to energies of ∼ 109 eV

Abstract

A new mechanism of laser acceleration of charged particles is investigated in detail. Upon irradiation by tightly focused high-intensity ultrashort laser pulses, the acceleration of electrons travelling along the laser beam axis is determined by the longitudinal ponderomotive force and the longitudinal component of the electric field of the laser wave. It is found that the action of the longitudinal field on an electron may be unidirectional during many optical cycles, i.e., the phase slip effect is overcome. Lasers with currently highest possible parameters are shown to enable electron acceleration up to energies ε ∼ 1 GeV, which is comparable to the energies attainable on `large' accelerators of the SLAC type (ε ∼ 30 — 50 GeV). Unlike the schemes considered in the literature, the acceleration in this case is insensitive to the initial field phase (the effect of electron bunching is absent), it is possible to accelerate slow (nonrelativistic) electrons, and the problem of accelerated electron extraction from the field does not exist.