Electron acceleration in vacuum by ultrashort and tightly focused radially polarized laser pulses

TL;DR

This paper presents exact solutions to Maxwell's equations to study how ultrashort, tightly focused radially polarized laser pulses can accelerate electrons in vacuum, potentially achieving higher energies and generating synchronized electron bunches.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis using exact solutions for electron acceleration by radially polarized laser pulses in the nonparaxial, ultrashort regime, highlighting potential advantages over traditional methods.

Findings

Higher energy gains possible with radially polarized beams

Potential to generate synchronized counterpropagating electron bunches

Exact solutions enable precise modeling of ultrashort pulse interactions

Abstract

Exact closed-form solutions to Maxwell's equations are used to investigate electron acceleration driven by radially polarized laser beams in the nonparaxial and ultrashort pulse regime. Besides allowing for higher energy gains, such beams could generate synchronized counterpropagating electron bunches.