Related papers: Near-surface electron acceleration during intense …
A planar laser pulse propagating in vacuum can exhibit an extremely large ponderomotive force. This force, however, cannot impart net energy to an electron: As the pulse overtakes the electron, the initial impulse from its rising edge is…
The acceleration of ions in the interaction of circular polarized laser pulses with overdense plasmas is investigated. For circular polarization laser pulses, the quasi-equilibrium for electrons is established due to the light pressure and…
We investigate the non-linear interaction of a strong Gravitational Wave with the plasma during the collapse of a massive magnetized star to form a black hole, or during the merging of neutron star binaries (central engine). We found that…
We demonstrate a high-energy, high-charge, electron source produced by the irradiation of a novel gaseous target by an ultra-intense femtosecond laser pulse. By exploiting a nonsymmetrical nozzle, we increased the total charge of the…
We propose a new approach to high-intensity relativistic laser-driven electron acceleration in a plasma. Here, we demonstrate that a plasma wave generated by a stimulated forward-scattering of an incident laser pulse can be in the longest…
Direct laser acceleration of electrons is considered in a strongly magnetized plasmoid with the magnetic field strength allowing for reaching the auto-resonance. The plasmoid may be optically created by irradiation of specially designed…
We show that when a solid plasma foil with a density gradient on the front surface is irradiated by an intense laser pulse at a grazing angle, around 80 degrees, a relativistic electron vortex is excited in the near-critical-density layer…
Laser wakefield accelerators rely on the extremely high electric fields of nonlinear plasma waves to trap and accelerate electrons to relativistic energies over short distances. When driven strongly enough, plasma waves break, trapping a…
The interaction of laser pulses with thin grating targets, having a periodic groove at the irradiated surface, has been experimentally investigated. Ultrahigh contrast ($\sim 10^{12}$) pulses allowed to demonstrate an enhanced laser-target…
We use PIC modeling to identify the acceleration mechanism responsible for the observed generation of super-hot electrons in ultra-intense laser-plasma interactions with solid targets with pre-formed plasma. We identify several features of…
We demonstrate a scheme for enhanced proton acceleration from near-critical-density targets by splitting a laser pulse into a linearly and a circularly polarized laser pulse. The combination of two laser pulses generates a shock wave as…
We measure the emission of energetic electrons from the interaction between ultrashort laser pulses and a solid density plasma in the relativistic regime. We detect an electron beam that only appears with few-cycle pulses (< 10 fs) and…
The substantial angular divergence of electron beams produced by direct laser acceleration is often considered as an inherent negative feature of the mechanism. The divergence however arises primarily because the standard approach relies on…
Exact closed-form solutions to Maxwell's equations are used to investigate the acceleration of electrons in vacuum driven by ultrashort and nonparaxial radially polarized laser pulses. We show that the threshold power above which…
The interaction of micro- and nano-structured target surfaces with high-power laser pulses is being widely investigated for its unprecedented absorption efficiency. We have developed vertically aligned metallic micro-pillar arrays for…
An electron irradiated by a linearly polarized relativistic intensity laser pulse in a cylindrical plasma channel can gain significant energy from the pulse. The laser electric and magnetic fields drive electron oscillations in a plane…
A plasma velocity shear layer and/or a tangential flow discontinuity provide conditions allowing for energetic particle acceleration. We review such acceleration processes acting both in non-relativistic and in relativistic flows. In…
We investigate electron acceleration resulting from 3D magnetic reconnection between an emerging, twisted magnetic flux rope and a pre-existing weak, open magnetic field. We first follow the rise of an unstable, twisted flux tube with a…
The manuscript deals with electron acceleration by a laser pulse in a plasma with a static uniform magnetic field $B_*$. The laser pulse propagates perpendicular to the magnetic field lines with the polarization chosen such that…
We consider a possibilty to use an echelon of mutually coherent laser pulses generated by the emerging CAN (Coherent Amplification Network) technology for direct particle acceleration in periodic plasma structures. The plasma structure…