Electron Acceleration by a Bichromatic Chirped Laser Pulse in Underdense Plasmas

TL;DR

This paper explores how bichromatic, chirped laser pulses can enhance electron acceleration in underdense plasmas, using a theoretical model that accounts for plasma effects via the index of refraction.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework analyzing the effects of bichromatic, chirped laser fields on electron acceleration in underdense plasmas, including the impact of second harmonic mixing.

Findings

Chirped bichromatic laser fields can improve electron acceleration efficiency.

Mixing second harmonic with fundamental wavelength has both advantages and disadvantages.

The model applies to both plane wave and Gaussian pulse configurations.

Abstract

A theoretical study of laser and plasma based electron acceleration is presented. An effective model has been used, in which the presence of an underdense plasma has been taken account via its index of refraction $n_{m}$. In the confines of this model, the basic phenomena can be studied by numerically solving the classical relativistic equations of motion. The key idea of this paper is the application of chirped, bichromatic laser fields. We investigated the advantages and disadvantages of mixing the second harmonic to the original $\lambda = 800 \, \mathrm{nm}$ wavelength pulse. We performed calculations both for plane wave and Gaussian pulses.