Laser acceleration in vacuum

This paper explores the use of the large electric fields of high-brightness lasers (e.g., up to order TV/cm) to accelerate particles. Unfortunately, as is well known, it is difficult to couple the vacuum field of the laser to particles so as to achieve a net energy gain. In principle, the energy gain near the focus of the laser can be quite high, i.e., on the order of the work done in crossing the focus Δγ=√(π)eEw∼30MeV√(P/1TW), where P is the laser power. In order to retain this energy, the particles must be in the highly nonlinear regime (Vosc/c>1) or must be separated from the laser within a distance on the order of a Rayleigh length from the focus. In this work, we explore the acceleration and output energy distribution of an electron beam injected at various angles and injection energies into a focused laser beam. Insight into the physical mechanism of energy gain is obtained by separating the contributions from the longitudinal and transverse laser field components. copyright 1997 American Institute of Physics