Stern-Gerlach surfing in laser wakefield accelerators

Abstract

We investigate the effects of a Stern-Gerlach-type addition to the Lorentz force on electrons in a laser wakefield accelerator. The Stern-Gerlach-type terms are found to generate a family of trajectories describing electrons that surf along the plasma density wave driven by a laser pulse. Such trajectories could lead to an increase in the size of an electron bunch, which may have implications for attempts to exploit such bunches in future free electron lasers.

arXiv comment16 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Radiation Reaction Effects on Radiation Pressure Acceleration
• Aspects of electromagnetic radiation reaction in strong fields
• Classical Radiation Reaction in Particle-In-Cell Simulations
• Radiation Reaction Effects on Electron Nonlinear Dynamics and Ion Acceleration in Laser-solid Interaction
• Mathisson's helical motions for a spinning particle --- are they unphysical?
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Charged particle motion and radiation in strong electromagnetic fields
• Scaling laws for the (de-)polarization time of relativistic particle beams in strong fields
• Identifying the Stern-Gerlach force of classical electron dynamics
• Generation of polarized particle beams at relativistic laser intensities
• Simulation of Polarized Beams from Laser-Plasma Accelerators