Phase motion of accelerated electrons in vacuum laser acceleration

The phase stability in the capture and acceleration scenario (CAS) is studied and compared with that of conventional linear electron accelerators (CLEAs). For the CAS case, it has been found that a slow phase slippage occurs due to the difference between the electron velocity and the phase velocity of the longitudinal accelerating electric field. Thus, CAS electrons cannot remain in a fixed small phase region of the accelerating field to obtain a quasimonoenergy gain in contrast to the stability of phase oscillation in CLEAs. Also, the energy spread of the output electron beam for the CAS case cannot be kept as small as the CLEA because there is no good phase bunching phenomenon generated by phase oscillation