A "slingshot" laser-driven acceleration mechanism of plasma electrons

Abstract

We briefly report on the recently proposed [G. Fiore, R. Fedele, U. de Angelis, Phys. Plasmas 21 (2014), 113105], [G. Fiore, S. De Nicola, arXiv:1509.04656] electron acceleration mechanism named "slingshot effect": under suitable conditions the impact of an ultra-short and ultra-intense laser pulse against the surface of a low-density plasma is expected to cause the expulsion of a bunch of superficial electrons with high energy in the direction opposite to that of the pulse propagation; this is due to the interplay of the huge ponderomotive force, huge longitudinal field arising from charge separation, and the finite size of the laser spot.

arXiv comment6 pages, 6 figures, one table. Talk held at the 2nd European Advanced Accelerator Concepts (EAAC) Workshop, 13-19 September 2015 La Biodola, Isola d'Elba. To appear in the proceedings, in Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res. A

References in corpus (3)

• The slingshot effect: a possible new laser-driven high energy acceleration mechanism for electrons
• On plane-wave relativistic electrodynamics in plasmas and in vacuum
• On plane waves in diluted relativistic cold plasmas

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Travelling waves and a fruitful `time' reparametrization in relativistic electrodynamics
• On the impact of short laser pulses on cold diluted plasmas
• Hydrodynamic impacts of short laser pulses on plasmas
• Simple model of the slingshot effect
• On very short and intense laser-plasma interactions
• Travelling waves and light-front approach in relativistic electrodynamics
• Light-front approach to relativistic electrodynamics
• Hydrodynamic regime and cold plasmas hit by short laser pulses