Electron acceleration to GeV energy by a radially polarized laser

We present a relativistic single particle simulation of vacuum acceleration of an electron by a high-intensity radially polarized laser beam. The inherent complete symmetry of radially polarized laser beam leads to improvement in the trapping and acceleration of an electron so that an electron can be accelerated to the level of GeV. In addition, the external magnetic field further enhances the electron acceleration. Hence, an electron of ultrahigh energy was observed. The strong correlation between final electron energy and scattering angle is discussed.     

Inner-shell ionization of rotating linear molecules in the presence of spin-dependent interactions: Entanglement between a photoelectron and an auger electron

The complex dynamical behavior of the electron sheath in laser driven ion acceleration leads to variations in ion beam pointing and ion energy modulation. These processes are derived from high resolution particle spectroscopy and 2D-PIC simulations. The phenomena arise from ion source movement if laser irradiation occurs at oblique incidence. Different laser absorption processes act in dependence on laser parameter which determines the ion acceleration.     

Scaling laws of electron acceleration driven by an intense laser pulse

We studied the scaling laws for slow-electron acceleration driven by an intense laser pulse in a vacuum, the ponderomotive acceleration scenario (PAS) scheme. With 3D test particle simulation by numerically solving the relativistic Lorentz–Newton equation of motion, the maximum electron energy gain was found to be proportional to the laser intensity (a₀), the laser beam width (w₀), and inversely proportional to the laser pulse duration (τ). Theoretical analyses and a physical explanation based on the ponderomotive potential model (PPM) are presented. PACS 42.50.Vk; 41.75.Jv; 42.60.Jf     

相对论飞秒激光脉冲在真空中对预加速电子的加速

通过求解电子运动的相对论方程，发现预加速电子在超强超短激光脉冲的作用下可以获得很高的能量增益. 飞秒激光脉冲的上升沿在焦点附近的区域有效加速电子后，电子和光脉冲一起传播一段距离（远大于瑞利长度）后，激光强度变得很弱，从而使脉冲下降沿对电子的减速作用可以忽略不计，因此电子只经历加速过程而没有被减速，当电子和光脉冲分离时，电子获得了很高的能量增益. 当光强为10¹⁹Ｗ／cm² ，电子的初始能量为MeV量级时，电子的能量增益可以达到01GeV. 进一步讨论了电子的能量增益与电子的初始条件与激光脉冲的参数之间的关系. 关键词： 电子加速 飞秒激光脉冲 能量增益     

Electron acceleration driven by ultrashort and nonparaxial radially polarized laser pulses

Exact closed-form solutions to Maxwell's equations are used to investigate the acceleration of electrons in vacuum driven by ultrashort and nonparaxial radially polarized laser pulses. We show that the threshold power above which significant acceleration takes place is greatly reduced by using a tighter focus. Moreover, electrons accelerated by tightly focused single-cycle laser pulses may reach around 80% of the theoretical energy gain limit, about twice the value previously reported with few-cycle paraxial pulses. Our results demonstrate that the direct acceleration of electrons in vacuum is well within reach of current laser technology.     

强场X射线激光物理

相干X光,特别是X射线自由电子激光技术的发展提供了一种新的产生超强光场的途径.由于其较高的光子能量、高峰值功率密度与超短的脉冲长度,有望将强场激光物理从可见光波段推进到X光波段.目前,基于X射线的非线性原子分子物理已取得了初步进展,随着X射线光强的提升,相互作用将进入相对论物理、强场量子电动力学(quantum electrodynamics,QED)物理等领域,为激光驱动加速与辐射、QED真空、暗物质的产生与探测等带来新的科学发现机会.本文对强场X射线激光在固体中的尾场加速、真空极化、轴子的产生与探测等方面进行介绍,旨在阐明X射线波段强场物理在若干基础前沿与关键应用方面的独特优势,并对未来的发展方向进行展望.     

Relativistic laser-matter interaction and relativistic laboratory astrophysics

The paper is devoted to the prospects of using the laser radiation interaction with plasmas in the laboratory relativistic astrophysics context. We discuss the dimensionless parameters characterizing the processes in the laser and astrophysical plasmas and emphisize a similarity between the laser and astrophysical plasmas in the ultrarelativistic energy limit. In particular, we address basic mechanisms of the charged particle acceleration, the collisionless shock wave and magnetic reconnection and vortex dynamics properties relevant to the problem of ultrarelativistic particle acceleration.     

激光等离子体波电子加速器

本文分别用理论分析和粒子模拟方法讨论了等离子体尾波加速器和拍波加速器的物理机制。结果表明,只要激光等离子体波足够强,加上适当强度的横向磁场,就可以把MeV数量级的电子在公尺距离内加速到GeV数量级的能量。另外,还用粒子模拟方法,研究了激光对热等离子体受激向后喇曼散射产生低相速度的等离子体静电波对低能电子加速的问题,探讨了多级或多波加速的可能性。结果表明,利用激光等离子体波加速器,在一般的实验室条件下,就可获得GeV数量级的高能电子。 关键词：     

Enhanced betatron radiation by a modulating laser pulse in laser wakefield acceleration

We propose a new idea to enhance and control the betatron radiation by using a modulating laser pulse in laser wakefield acceleration. In this scheme, a high-power laser pulse is used for self-trapping and acceleration of the plasma electrons and the accelerated electron beam is modulated by a separately-propagating laser pulse for large amplitude betatron oscillations and microbunching. In this way, the relatively low power modulating laser pulse can enhance the X-ray photon flux and energy significantly. We performed two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to demonstrate the idea and the results show that a sub-TW laser pulse is enough for electron beam modulation and it can generate easily-controllable fs X-ray pulses with a wide range of photon energies from soft X-rays to hard X-rays.     

Electron Acceleration by a radially polarised cosh-Gaussian laser beam in vacuum

In this paper, a radially polarised cosh-Gaussian laser beam(CGLB) is used to study the electron acceleration produced in vacuum. A highly energetic electron beam can be achieved by a CGLB,even with comparatively low-powered lasers. The properties of a CGLB cause it to focus earlier,over a shorter duration than a Gaussian laser beam, which makes it suitable for obtaining high energies over small durations. It is found that the energy gained by the electrons strongly depends upon the decentering parameter of the laser profile. It is also observed that for a fixed value of energy gain, if the decentering parameter is increased, then the intensity of the laser field decreases. The dependence of the energy gained by electrons on the laser intensity and the laserspot size is also studied.     

Effect of the ponderomotive scattering and injection position on electron-bunch injection into a laser wakefield

For the purpose of laser wakefield acceleration, it turns out that the injection of electron bunches longer than the plasma wavelength can also generate accelerated femtosecond bunches with a relatively low energy spread. This is of great interest because such injecting bunches can be provided, e.g., by photo cathode rf linacs. Here we show that when an e-bunch is injected into the wakefield, it is important to take into account the interaction of the injected bunch with the laser pulse in the vacuum region located in front of the plasma. We show that at low energies of the injected bunch, this leads to ponderomotive scattering of the bunch and results in a significant drop of the collection efficiency. For certain injection energies the ponderomotive scattering may result in a smaller energy spread in the accelerated bunch. It is found that the injection position in the laser wakefield plays an important role. Higher collection efficiency can be obtained for certain injection energies, when the bunch is injected in plasma at some distance from the laser pulse; the energy spread, however, is typically larger in this case. We also estimate the minimum trapping energy for the injected electrons and the length of the trapped bunch. PACS 52.38.Kd; 41.75.Jv; 41.85.Ar     

电子在紧聚焦激光束中加速的最佳入射

通过数值模拟研究了电子在真空紧聚焦激光束中的动力学行为和能量增益。研究发现对应于两种不同的轨迹，电子可以得到纵向和横向两种电场的加速。阐明了电子的能量增益与电子的入射角和入射动量间的关系。对于给定的激光参数，给出了电子的最佳入射参数。     

基于带电粒子活化法开展的SGⅡ-U皮秒激光质子加速实验研究

基于带电粒子活化测谱方法在SGⅡ-U装置上开展了皮秒激光靶背鞘场机制质子加速实验研究,对靶参数进行了优化.利用带电粒子活化测谱方法测量了相同激光条件、不同Cu薄膜靶厚度情况下靶背鞘场加速质子的最高截止能量、角分布、总产额以及激光能量到质子的转化效率等关键参数.实验发现,SGⅡ-U皮秒激光靶背鞘场加速机制的最佳Cu薄膜靶厚度为10 μm,对应质子最高能量接近40 MeV,质子（>4 MeV）总产额约4×10¹²个,激光能量到质子的转化效率约2%.薄膜靶更厚或者更薄都会降低加速质子的最高截止能量;当靶厚减薄至1 μm时,皮秒激光的预脉冲开始对靶背鞘场产生显著影响,质子最高截止能量急剧下降,高能质子束斑呈现空心结构;而当靶厚增加至35 μm时,虽然质子束的能量有所降低,但是质子束斑的均匀性更好.     

Particle dynamics during adiabatic expansion of a plasma bunch

The renormalization-group approach is used to obtain an exact solution to the self-consistent Vlasov kinetic equations for plasma particles in the quasi-neutral approximation. This solution describes the one-dimensional adiabatic expansion of a plasma bunch into a vacuum for arbitrary initial particle velocity distributions. Ion acceleration is studied for two-temperature Maxwellian and super-Gaussian initial electron distributions, which predetermine distinctly different ion spectra. The solution found is used to describe the acceleration of ions of two types. The relative acceleration efficiency of light and heavy ions as a function of atomic weights and number densities is analyzed. The solutions obtained are of practical importance in describing ion acceleration during the interaction of an ultrashort laser pulse with nanoplasma, for example, cluster plasma or plasma produced when thin foils are irradiated by a laser.     

外加静电场的聚焦激光脉冲真空加速电子方案

采用五阶修正的聚焦激光光场方程模拟研究了由Singh提出的在电子和激光脉冲作用尾部阶段施加外场的加速方案,将Singh方案中采用的外加磁场改成了外加电场,并且考虑了光束的纵向电场和光束衍射效应.模拟结果显示,电子可以从加速相位阶段被外场导入下一个加速相位阶段而不进入减速相位阶段,因此电子能获得比不加外场方案更高的净能增益. 关键词： 强激光 激光加速     

Intense laser-driven energetic proton beams from solid density targets

The effects of target density on proton acceleration driven by an intense sub-ps laser pulse are investigated using two-dimensional hybrid particle-in-cell simulations. Results show that at higher density the target-normal-sheath acceleration (TNSA) is more effective than shock acceleration for protons from a plastic target. Furthermore a lower-density target is favorable to higher energy of the TNSA protons. Moreover, the longitudinal electric fields at the target surfaces may reveal typical inhomogeneous structures for a long acceleration time. The conversion efficiency of laser energy into particle (electron, proton, and C(+) ion) energy is found to increase with decreasing target density.     

Laser acceleration in novel media

With newly available compact laser technology [1] we are capable of producing 100?PW-class laser pulses with a single-cycle duration on the femtosecond timescale. With this fs intense laser we can produce a coherent X-ray pulse that is also compressed, well into the hard X-ray regime (～10?keV) and with a power up to as much as 10 Exawatts. We suggest utilizing these coherent X-rays to drive the acceleration of particles. Such X-rays are focusable far beyond the diffraction limit of the original laser wavelength and when injected into a crystal it forms a metallic-density electron plasma ideally suited for laser wakefield acceleration. If the X-ray field is limited by the Schwinger field at the focal size of ～100?nm, the achievable energy is 1?PeV over 50?m. (If the X-rays are focused further, much higher energies beyond this are possible). These processes are not limited to only electron acceleration, and if ions are pre-accelerated to beyond GeV they are capable of being further accelerated using a LWFA scheme [2] to similar energies as electrons over the same distance-scales. Such high energy proton (and ion) beams can induce copious neutrons, which can also give rise to intense compact muon beams and neutrino beams that may be portable. High-energy gamma rays can also be efficiently emitted with a bril- liance many orders of magnitude above the brightest X-ray sources by this accelerating process, from both the betatron radiation as well as the dominant radiative-damping dynamics. With the exceptional conditions enabled by this technology we envision a whole scope of new physical phenomena, including: the possibility of laser self-focus in the vacuum, neutron manipulation by the beat of such lasers, zeptosecond spectroscopy of nuclei, etc. Further, we now introduce along with the idea of vacuum as a nonlinear medium, the Schwinger Fiber Accelerator. This is a self-organized vacuum fiber acceleration concept, in which the repeated process of self-focusing and defocusing for the X-ray pulse in vacuum forms a modulated fiber that guides the intense X-rays.     

超强圆偏振激光直接加速产生超高能量电子束

研究表明, 峰值强度为10²²–10²⁵ W/cm²量级的圆偏振激光脉冲的有质动力场可以直接加速并产生GeV–TeV的单能电子束, 其中被加速电子的能量与激光脉冲的峰值强度成线性定标关系. 为了获得更高能量的电子束, 通过对一维解析模型的分析得到: 如果电子束在激光传播的方向上具一个初始能量E₀, 那么这种线性的定标关系可以被打破, 被加速电子束最终的能量可以被放大E₀倍. 这是由于具有一定初始能量的电子束不容易被激光脉冲抛在后面, 进而获得更高的加速距离. 二维粒子模拟结果显示: 当电子束的初始能量E₀为MeV量级时这个方法是有效的, 而当E₀过大时这个方法失效. 这是因为当电子的加速距离远大于激光脉冲的瑞利长度时, 激光强度的衰减使得电子束的加速错过了最佳加速场.     

Coherent acceleration by laser pulse echelons in periodic plasma structures

We consider a possibilty to use an echelon of mutually coherent laser pulses generated by the emerging CAN (Coherent Amplification Network) technology for direct particle acceleration in periodic plasma structures. We discuss resonant and free streaming configurations. The resonant plasma structures can trap energy of longer laser pulses but are limited to moderate laser intensities of about 10¹⁴?W/cm² and are very sensitive to the structure quality. The free streaming configurations can survive laser intensities above 10¹⁸?W/cm² for several tens of femtoseconds so that sustained accelerating rates well above TeV/m are feasible. In our full electromagnetic relativistic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations we show a test electron bunch gaining up to 200?GeV over a distance of 10.2?cm only.     

双束平行入射电子束引导的自注入电子加速效果的研究

在粒子束引导的等离子尾波场加速机制中,为了加速电子获得最大能量,大量研究集中于改变单束牵引粒子束的线度、形状、电荷性质等参数. 综合考虑已有的实验结果,本文提出了一种相比于单束电子牵引更为有效的加速方式,利用双束平行电子束来加速自注入的电子. 通过2.5维粒子程序模拟,发现在牵引电子束具有相同能量、电量、尺寸的条件下,通过双束平行电子束加速得到的电子具有长程加速、高能和准单能性的特性. 同时在空泡内形成了一束独特的回流电子,进一步使得自注入电子具有更好的准直性. 关键词： 电子束尾波场加速 双束平行电子束 粒子模拟