Electron bunching in a Penning trap and accelerating process for CO₂ gas mixture active medium

In PASER (particle acceleration by stimulated emission of radiation), in the presence of an active medium incorporated in a Penning trap, moving electrons can become bunched, and as they get enough energy, they escape the trap forming an optical injector. These bunched electrons can enter the next PASER section filled with the same active medium to be accelerated. In this paper, electron dynamics in the presence of a gas mixture active medium incorporated in a Penning trap is analyzed by developing an idealized 1D model. We evaluate the energy exchange occurring as the train of electrons traverses into the next PASER section. The results show that the oscillating electrons can be bunched at the resonant frequency of the active medium. The influence of the trapped time and population inversion are analyzed, showing that the longer the electrons are trapped, the more energy from the medium the accelerated electrons get, and with the increase of population inversion, the decelerated electrons are virtually unchanged but the accelerated electrons more than double their peak energy values. The simulation results show that the gas active medium needs a lower population inversion to bunch the electrons compared to a solid active medium, so the experimental conditions can easily be achieved. (authors)