Optical control of the topology of laser-plasma accelerators
Abstract
We propose a twisted plasma accelerator capable of generating relativistic electron vortex beams with helical current profiles. The angular momentum of these vortex bunches is quantized, dominates their transverse motion, and results in spiraling particle trajectories around the twisted wakefield. We focus on a laser wakefield acceleration scenario, driven by a laser beam with a helical spatiotemporal intensity profile, also known as a light spring. We find that these light springs can rotate as they excite the twisted plasma wakefield, providing a new mechanism to control the twisted wakefield phase velocity and enhance energy gain and trapping efficiency beyond planar wakefields.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1807.04147,
title = {Optical control of the topology of laser-plasma accelerators},
author = {J. Vieira and J. T. Mendonça and F. Quéré},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.04147},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
10 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters