Particle acceleration in sub-cycle optical cells

Abstract

A single laser pulse with spot size smaller than half its wavelength ($w_0<\lambda /2$) can provide a net energy gain to ultra-relativistic particles. In this paper, we discuss the properties of an optical cell consisting of $N$ sub-cycle pulses that propagate in the direction perpendicular to the electron motion. We show that the energy gain produced by the cell is proportional to $N$ and it is sizable even for $\mathcal{O}(1\mathrm{TW})$ pulses.

13 pages, 7 figures. Version to appear in PRSTAB

References in corpus (2)

• Electron acceleration driven by ultrashort and nonparaxial radially polarized laser pulses
• A Threshold for Laser-Driven Linear Particle Acceleration in Unbounded Vacuum

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Classical Dynamics of Free Electromagnetic Laser Pulses
• The Dynamics of Compact Laser Pulses