M.J.H. Luttikhof

Generating ultrarelativistic attosecond electron bunches with laser wakefield accelerators

Femtosecond electron bunches with ultrarelativistic energies were recently generated by laser wakefield accelerators. Here we predict that laser wakefield acceleration can generate even attosecond bunches, due to a strong chirp of the betatron frequency. We show how the bunch duration scales with the acceleration parameters and that, after acceleration, the bunches can propagate over many tens of centimeters without a significant increase in duration.

Design and simulation of laser wakefield acceleration with external electron bunch injection in front of the laser pulse

In this article we present a theoretical investigation on an experimental design of a laser wakefield accelerator in which electron bunches from a photocathode radio frequency linac are injected into a capillary discharge plasma channel just in front of a few tens of terawatt drive laser pulse. The electron bunch, with a kinetic energy of 2.9 MeV and an energy chirp imposed by the linac, is magnetically compressed by a factor of 8 to a duration of 250 fs, and is magnetically focused into the plasma channel where it matches the spot size of the drive laser ([approximate]30 µm). The dynamics of the bunch, starting from the photocathode, through the linac, along the beam transportation line, through the magnetic compressor, and its focusing into the plasma channel are comprehensively simulated with the general particle tracer code. Further, we use our three-dimensional numerical codes to calculate the laser wakefield and to determine and optimize the trapping and acceleration of the injected bunch in the wakefield. We show that, injecting a 5 pC electron bunch of 250 fs duration, the experiment should deliver an electron bunch of approximately 744 MeV energy, with 1.1% relative energy spread, and with an extremely short duration (6 fs), after acceleration in a 5.4 cm long plasma channel

Electron bunch injection at an angle into a laser wakefield

External injection of electron bunches longer than the plasma wavelength in a laser wakefield accelerator can lead to the generation of femtosecond ultrarelativistic bunches with a couple of percent energy spread. Extensive study has been done on external electron bunch (e.g. one generated by a photo-cathode rf linac) injection in a laser wakefield for different configurations. In this paper we investigate a new way of external injection where the electron bunch is injected at a small angle into the wakefield. This way one can avoid the ponderomotive scattering as well as the vacuum-plasma transition region, which tend to destroy the injected bunch. In our simulations, the effect of the laser pulse dynamics is also taken into account. It is shown that injection at an angle can provide compressed and accelerated electron bunches with less than 2% energy spread. Another advantage of this scheme is that it has less stringent requirements in terms of the size of the injected bunch and there is the potential to trap more charge.

The effect of the vacuum-plasma transition and an injection angle on electron-bunch injection into a laser wakefield

External injection of an electron bunch in the laser wakefield can result in femtosecond accelerated bunches with relatively low energy spread. In this paper it is shown that the density transition from vacuum to plasma can play an important role in the trapping process. The plasma wavelength in this transition region changes continuously, which means that the injected electrons see an altering wakefield. This can result in strong defocusing of the injected bunch. It is found that the effect becomes stronger for stronger wakefields, longer transition lengths, and lower injection energies. The transition region can be avoided if the bunch is injected into the wakefield at an angle. Injecting the bunch at an angle allows the bunch to be wider and results in more charge being trapped. The dynamics of the bunch in this case are similar to the dynamics of a bunch injected in front of the laser pulse

Attosecond electron bunches from laser wakefield accelerators

Femtosecond electron bunches with ultra-relativistic energies were recently generated by laser wakefield accelerators. Here we predict that such accelerators can generate stable attosecond bunches, due to betatron phase mixing within a femtosecond electron bunch.