Microbunching And Coherent Acceleration Of Electrons By Subcycle Laser Pulses

The pick up and acceleration of all plasma electrons irradiated by an intense, subcyclic laser pulse is demonstrated via analytical and numerical calculations. It is shown that the initial low emittance of the plasma electrons is conserved during the process of acceleration, leading to an extremely cold, bunched electron beam. Compression of the electron bunch along the longitudinal coordinate is naturally achieved due to the interaction of electrons and laser pulse. In this paper, we find the localized solutions to Maxwell's equations of a subcyclic laser pulse and use these to determine the acceleration of charged particles and we suggest future application for this acceleration mechanism as low energy particle injector and as electron source for coherent x-ray generation.Physic