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Article
Electron Self-Injection and Trapping into an Evolving Plasma Bubble
Physical Review Letters (2009)
  • Serguei Y. Kalmykov
  • Sunghwan A. Yi
  • Vladimir N. Khudik
  • Gennady Shvets
Abstract

The blowout (or bubble) regime of laser wakefield acceleration is promising for generating monochromatic high-energy electron beams out of low-density plasmas. It is shown analytically and by particle-in-cell simulations that self-injection of the background plasma electrons into the quasistatic plasma bubble can be caused by slow temporal expansion of the bubble. Sufficient criteria for the electron trapping and bubble’s expansion rate are derived using a semianalytic nonstationary Hamiltonian theory. It is further shown that the combination of bubble’s expansion and contraction results in monoenergetic electron beams.

Keywords
  • Laser wakefield acceleration,
  • blowout regime,
  • Hamiltonian theory of electron self-injection
Publication Date
Fall September 25, 2009
Citation Information
Serguei Y. Kalmykov, Sunghwan A. Yi, Vladimir N. Khudik and Gennady Shvets. "Electron Self-Injection and Trapping into an Evolving Plasma Bubble" Physical Review Letters Vol. 103 (2009)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/serguei_kalmykov/11/