Scaling laws for direct laser acceleration in a radiation-reaction dominated regime

Abstract

We study electron acceleration within a sub-critical plasma channel irradiated by an ultra-intense laser pulse ($a_0>100$ or $I>10^{22}W/c{\mathrm{m}}^2$). In this regime, radiation reaction significantly alters the electron dynamics. This has an effect not only on the maximum attainable electron energy but also on the phase-matching process between betatron motion and electron oscillations in the laser field. Our study encompasses analytical description, test-particle calculations and 2-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We show single-stage electron acceleration to multi-GeV energies within a 0.5 mm-long channel and provide guidelines how to obtain energies beyond 10 GeV using optimal initial configurations. We present the required conditions in a form of explicit analytical scaling laws that can be applied to plan the future electron acceleration experiments.

References in corpus (4)

• Novel Aspects of Direct Laser Acceleration of Relativistic Electrons
• Role of direct laser acceleration in energy gained by electrons in a laser wakefield accelerator with ionization injection
• Extremely intense laser-based electron acceleration in a plasma channel
• Impact of ion dynamics on laser-driven electron acceleration and gamma-ray emission in structured targets at ultra-high laser intensities

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