Pondermotive acceleration of electrons to GeV energies by a tightly focused ultra-short ultra-intense laser pulse

Abstract

Laser-driven pondermotive acceleration of electrons in vacuum has been considered using computer simulations. It is demonstrated that a low-energy free electron can be violently accelerated to final kinetic energy of GeV by a tightly focused ultra-short ultra-intense laser pulse. Suitable conditions that are crucial for this phenomenon to occur have been investigated. It is shown that selection of appropriate initial conditions like relative time delay between electron and the laser pulse, electron's incident angle and momentum, laser pulse duration and its focal spot size play important roles in the efficient acceleration scheme.