Vacuum electron acceleration by coherent dipole radiation
- Institute for Laser Science and Applications, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550 (United States)
- Department of Applied Science, University of California, Davis, California 95616 (United States)
- Nuclear Engineering Department, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37916 (United States)
- Physics Department and Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)
The validity of the concept of laser-driven vacuum acceleration has been questioned, based on an extrapolation of the well-known Lawson-Woodward theorem, which stipulates that plane electromagnetic waves cannot accelerate charged particles in vacuum. To formally demonstrate that electrons can indeed be accelerated in vacuum by focusing or diffracting electromagnetic waves, the interaction between a point charge and coherent dipole radiation is studied in detail. The corresponding four-potential exactly satisfies both Maxwell{close_quote}s equations and the Lorentz gauge condition everywhere, and is analytically tractable. It is found that in the far-field region, where the field distribution closely approximates that of a plane wave, we recover the Lawson-Woodward result, while net acceleration is obtained in the near-field region. The scaling of the energy gain with wave-front curvature and wave amplitude is studied systematically. {copyright} {ital 1999} {ital The American Physical Society}
- OSTI ID:
- 351868
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. E, Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics, Vol. 60, Issue 1; Other Information: PBD: Jul 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Three-dimensional relativistic electron scattering in an ultrahigh-intensity laser focus
First Observations of Laser-Driven Acceleration of Relativistic Electrons in a Semi-Infinite Vacuum Space