Ponderomotive and resonant effects in the acceleration of particles by electromagnetic modes
Abstract
In the present analysis, we study the dynamics of charged particles under the action of slowly modulated electromagnetic carrier waves. With the use of a high-frequency laser mode along with a modulated static magnetic wiggler, we show that the ensuing total field effectively acts as a slowly modulated high-frequency beat-wave field typical of inverse free-electron laser schemes. This effective resulting field is capable of accelerating particles in much the same way as space-charge wake fields do in plasma accelerators, with the advantage of being more stable than plasma related methods. Acceleration occurs as particles transition from ponderomotive to resonant regimes, so we develop the ponder- omotive formalism needed to examine this problem. The ponderomotive formalism includes terms that, although not discussed in the usual applications of the approximation, are nevertheless of crucial importance in the vicinity of resonant capture. The role of these terms is also briefly discussed in the context of generic laser-plasma interactions.
Citation
Almansa , I , Russman , FB , Marini , S , Peter , E , de Oliveira , G I , Cairns , R A & Rizzato , F B 2019 , ' Ponderomotive and resonant effects in the acceleration of particles by electromagnetic modes ' , Physics of Plasmas , vol. 26 , no. 3 , 033105 . https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5058748
Publication
Physics of Plasmas
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1070-664XType
Journal article
Rights
© 2019, the Author(s). This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher's policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available a https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5058748
Description
Funding: U.K. Science and Engineering Research Council under Grant No. EP/N028694/1 (R.A.C.).Collections
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