Quasimonoenergetic electron beam and brilliant gamma-ray radiation generated from near critical density plasma due to relativistic resonant phase locking

Abstract

We show that a high current quasi-monoenergetic electron beam and a peaked brilliant gamma-ray beam can be generated by irradiating an ultra-intense laser pulse on uniform near critical density plasma, with a laser spot radius RL∼(λ/π)2a/n, here λ is the laser wave length, a denotes the normalized laser intensity, and n denotes the normalized plasma density. Due to a relativistic resonant phase locking mechanism, high energy oscillating electrons are trapped to ride on the laser electric field, and an unprecedented ultra-fast ultra-brilliant gamma-ray pulse is emitted from the electrons. Both the high energy electrons and gamma-ray photons are emitted in a small polar angle range. It is similar to a conventional wiggler synchrotron, except that the curvature radius of electron orbits in the laboratory coordinate frame measures in microns rather than in meters.