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Title: Laser-Induced Linear-Field Particle Acceleration in Free Space

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
 [1];  [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [5];  [2];  [2];  [6];  [7]
  1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Innovis (Singapore)
  2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  3. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  4. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg (Germany)
  5. Northern Illinois Univ., DeKalb, IL (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
  6. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging, Hamburg (Germany); Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg (Germany)
  7. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa (Israel)

Linear-field particle acceleration in free space (which is distinct from geometries like the linac that requires components in the vicinity of the particle) has been studied for over 20 years, and its ability to eventually produce high-quality, high energy multi-particle bunches has remained a subject of great interest. Arguments can certainly be made that linear-field particle acceleration in free space is very doubtful given that first-order electron-photon interactions are forbidden in free space. Nevertheless, we chose to develop an accurate and truly predictive theoretical formalism to explore this remote possibility when intense, few-cycle electromagnetic pulses are used in a computational experiment. The formalism includes exact treatment of Maxwell’s equations and exact treatment of the interaction among the multiple individual particles at near and far field. Several surprising results emerge. We find that electrons interacting with intense laser pulses in free space are capable of gaining substantial amounts of energy that scale linearly with the feld amplitude. For example, 30keV electrons (2.5% energy spread) are accelerated to 61MeV (0.5% spread) and to 205MeV (0.25% spread) using 250 mJ and 2.5J lasers respectively. Furthermore, these findings carry important implications for our understanding of ultrafast electron-photon interactions in strong fields.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359
OSTI ID:
1398387
Report Number(s):
arXiv:1611.05697; FERMILAB-PUB-17-425-APC; 1498611
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 38 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (13)

Sub-cycle dynamics in relativistic nanoplasma acceleration journal May 2019
Graphene Metamaterials for Intense, Tunable, and Compact Extreme Ultraviolet and X-Ray Sources. text January 2020
THz-driven Surface Plasmon Undulator as a Compact Highly Directional Narrow Band Incoherent X-Ray Source text January 2019
Graphene Metamaterials for Intense, Tunable, and Compact Extreme Ultraviolet and X‐Ray Sources journal October 2019
Electron acceleration by a radially-polarized laser pulse in a plasma micro-channel journal January 2019
Influence of longitudinal chromatism on vacuum acceleration by intense radially polarized laser beams journal January 2019
Measuring the magnetic axis alignment during solenoids working journal July 2018
Author Correction: Attosecond coherent control of free-electron wave functions using semi-infinite light fields journal March 2019
Relativistic electron acceleration by focused THz pulses journal June 2018
Attosecond coherent control of free-electron wave functions using semi-infinite light fields journal July 2018
THz-driven surface plasmon undulator as a compact highly directional narrow band incoherent x-ray source journal September 2019
Direct electron acceleration for diagnostics of a laser pulse focused by an off-axis parabolic mirror journal October 2018
THz-driven surface plasmon undulator as a compact highly directional narrow band incoherent x-ray source text January 2019


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