The possibility of electron acceleration during the laser radiation relativistic and charge-displacement self-channeling is studied theoretically. A new acceleration mechanism related to the formation of an ion cloud traveling in a matter with the laser pulse (due to the effect of the ponderomotive force) is considered. The quasistationary electric and magnetic fields generated by the moving ion cloud may accelerate electrons to energies of tens of MeV and result in the formation of an electron beam going forward coaxially with the laser pulse. The angular distribution of accelerated electron calculated matches the experimental results found in the available publications.

Date Published: 22 May 2006
PDF: 14 pages
Proc. SPIE 6256, ICONO 2005: Ultrafast Phenomena and Physics of Superintense Laser Fields; Quantum and Atom Optics; Engineering of Quantum Information, 625604 (22 May 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.679711

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6256:
ICONO 2005: Ultrafast Phenomena and Physics of Superintense Laser Fields; Quantum and Atom Optics; Engineering of Quantum Information
Hans A. Bachor; Andre D. Bandrauk; Paul B. Corkum; Markus Drescher; Mikhail Fedorov; Serge Haroche; Sergei Kilin; Alexander Sergienko, Editor(s)