English

Wakefield acceleration in atmospheric plasmas: a possible source of MeV electrons

Plasma Physics 2018-09-26 v1

Abstract

Intense electromagnetic pulses interacting with a plasma can create a wake of plasma oscillations. Electrons trapped in such oscillations can be accelerated under certain conditions to very high energies. We study the conditions for the wakefield acceleration to produce MeV electrons in atmospheric plasmas. This mechanism may explain the origin of MeV or runaway electrons needed in the current theories for the production of Terrestrial Gamma ray Flashes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1506.07072,
  title  = {Wakefield acceleration in atmospheric plasmas: a possible source of MeV electrons},
  author = {M. Arrayás and D. Cubero and R. Seviour and J. L. Trueba},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.07072},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

11 pages, 3 figures,