Direct laser acceleration of electrons by tightly focused laser pulses

Abstract

We present an analytical theory that reveals the importance of the longitudinal laser electric field in the resonant acceleration of relativistic electrons by the tightly confined laser beam. It is shown that this field always counterworks to the laser transverse component and effectively decreases the final energy gain of electrons through direct laser acceleration mechanism. This effect is demonstrated by carrying out the particle-in-cell simulations in the setup where the wakefield in the plasma bubble is compensated by the longitudinal laser electric field experienced by the accelerated electrons. The derived scalings and estimates are in good agreement with numerical simulations.

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Direct laser acceleration in underdense plasmas with multi-PW lasers: a path to high-charge, GeV-class electron bunches
• Scaling laws for direct laser acceleration in a radiation-reaction dominated regime
• Predominant Contribution of Direct Laser Acceleration to High-Energy Electron Spectra in a Low-Density Self-Modulated Laser Wakefield Accelerator
• Accurate simulation of direct laser acceleration in a laser wakefield accelerator
• Laser-Pulse and Electron-Bunch Plasma Wakefield Accelerator
• Optimizing direct laser-driven electron acceleration and energy gain at ELI-NP