Laser-driven particle accelerators. Final technical report

Theoretical and experimental studies have been performed on laser-driven particle accelerators. The theoretical work primarily consisted of detailed analysis and computer simulation of the stimulated Cherenkov interaction. Additional analysis was also done on the two-wave accelerator, the limited interaction accelerator and the inverse synchrotron accelerator. These were compared with other techniques such as the beat-wave, inverse Smith-Purcell, and the inverse free-electron laser. Experimental work was primarily devoted to showing the feasibility of the stimulated Cherenkov interaction for the acceleration of charged particles using a laser. This work can be broken down into three experiments: a measurement of the change in momentum spectrum of an electron beam passing through a laser field; the dependence of this change on the refractive index of the medium in which the interaction occurs; and the observation of second harmonic radiation from the resulting bunched electron beam. In each case the results predicted from analysis and Monte Carlo simulations are in good agreement with the data