Colliding Pulse Injection of Polarized Electron Bunches in a Laser-Plasma Accelerator

Abstract

Highly polarized, multi-kiloampere-current electron bunches from compact laser-plasma accelerators are desired for numerous applications. Current proposals to produce these beams suffer from intrinsic limitations to the reproducibility, charge, beam shape and final polarization degree. In this Letter, we propose colliding pulse injection as a technique for the generation of highly polarized electron bunches from pre-polarized plasma sources. Using particle-in-cell simulations, we show that colliding pulse injection enables trapping and precise control over electron spin evolution, resulting in the generation of high-current (multi-kA) electron bunches with high degrees of polarization (up to 95 % for > 2 kA). Bayesian optimization is employed to optimize the multidimensional parameter space associated with colliding pulse injection to obtain percent-level energy spread, sub-micron normalized emittance electron bunches with 90 % polarization using 100-TW class laser systems.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Precision Measurement of the Weak Charge of the Proton
• Ultrarelativistic electron beam polarization in single-shot interaction with an ultraintense laser pulse
• Production of highly-polarized positrons using polarized electrons at MeV energies
• Spin-polarizing interferometric beam splitter for free electrons
• Accurate modeling of plasma acceleration with arbitrary order pseudo-spectral particle-in-cell methods
• Bayesian optimization of laser-plasma accelerators assisted by reduced physical models
• Helicity transfer in strong laser fields via the electron anomalous magnetic moment
• Control of electron beam polarization in the bubble regime of laser-wakefield acceleration

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Spin-polarized electron beam generation in the colliding-pulse injection scheme
• Generation of polarized electron beams through self-injection in the interaction of a laser with a pre-polarized plasma
• Plasma acceleration of polarized particle beams
• Intrinsic Nonlocality of Spin- and Polarization-Resolved Probabilities in Strong-Field Quantum Electrodynamics