Particle-in-cell simulation of x-ray wakefield acceleration and betatron radiation in nanotubes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates through 2D particle-in-cell simulations that x-ray wakefield acceleration inside nanotubes can achieve TeV/cm gradients, enabling compact ultrahigh-energy particle acceleration and high-energy photon emission.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme for x-ray wakefield acceleration in nanotubes with significantly higher gradients than plasma methods, confirmed by detailed simulations.

Findings

Achieves TeV/cm acceleration gradients in simulations.

Produces high-energy photons in the 10-100 MeV range.

Shows improved electron beam emittance.

Abstract

Though wakefield acceleration in crystal channels has been previously proposed, x-ray wakefield acceleration has only recently become a realistic possibility since the invention of the single-cycled optical laser compression technique. We investigate the acceleration due to a wakefield induced by a coherent, ultrashort x-ray pulse guided by a nanoscale channel inside a solid material. By two-dimensional particle in- cell computer simulations, we show that an acceleration gradient of TeV/cm is attainable. This is about 3 orders of magnitude stronger than that of the conventional plasma-based wakefield accelerations, which implies the possibility of an extremely compact scheme to attain ultrahigh energies. In addition to particle acceleration, this scheme can also induce the emission of high energy photons at ~O(10-100) MeV. Our simulations confirm such high energy photon emissions, which is in contrast with that induced by the optical laser driven wakefield scheme. In addition to this, the significantly improved emittance of the energetic electrons has been discussed.