Laser wakefield acceleration of electrons in a magnetically controlled plasma

Abstract

Abstract In the present study, the laser wakefield acceleration of electrons in a magnetically-controlled plasma is investigated. The results indicate that by employing a linearly-chirped laser pulse propagating through magnetized plasma with a reversed external magnetic field, higher energy electrons are obtained than with unmagnetized plasma and/or a nonchirped laser pulse. By considering an appropriate constant chirping magnitude and an axial external magnetic field, one can obtain remarkable GeV electron energies. It is also found that the effect of the external magnetic field direction on the electron energy is not sensed much in the mildly relativistic regime, while the reversed magnetic field increases the peak of electron energy gains compared with the forward magnetic field in the highly relativistic regime. For the mildly relativistic case, a peak energy of 412 MeV and a relative energy spread of 7% is obtained. In addition, for the highly relativistic case, a peak energy of 1.55 GeV is obtained.