Simulations of the Acceleration of Externally Injected Electrons in a Plasma Excited in the Linear Regime

TL;DR

This paper presents numerical simulations demonstrating efficient acceleration of high-charge 10 MeV electrons using a high-power laser-driven plasma wave, achieving over 1 GV/m fields, and proposes an experimental validation.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical study of electron acceleration in plasma waves driven by a 50 TW laser, highlighting high efficiency coupling and potential for experimental testing.

Findings

Achieved accelerating fields above 1 GV/m

Demonstrated high coupling efficiency with a 50 TW laser

Proposed an experiment to validate the simulation results

Abstract

We have investigated numerically the coupling between a 10 \si{MeV} electron bunch of high charge (\SI{> 100}{pc}) with a laser generated accelerating plasma wave. Our results show that a high efficiency coupling can be achieved using a \SI{50}{TW}, \SI{100}{\micro \meter} wide laser beam, yielding accelerating field above \SI{1}{ GV/m}. We propose an experiment where these predictions could be tested.