Production of a keV X-Ray Beam from Synchrotron Radiation in Relativistic Laser-Plasma Interaction

Authors

Antoine Rousse, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, ENSTA, CNRS UMR7639, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France
Kim Ta Phuoc, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, ENSTA, CNRS UMR7639, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France
Rahul Shah, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Alexander Pukhov, Insitut fuer Theoretische Physik I, Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet, Duesseldorf,Germany
Eric Lefebvre, Département de Physique Théorique et Appliquée, CEA/DAM Ile- de-France, France
Victor Malka, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, ENSTA, CNRS UMR7639, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, FranceFollow
Sergey Kiselev, Insitut fuer Theoretische Physik I, Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet, Duesseldorf,Germany
Frederic Burgy, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, ENSTA, CNRS UMR7639, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France
Jean-Philippe Rousseau, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, ENSTA, CNRS UMR7639, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France
Donald P. Umstadter, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Daniele Hulin, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, ENSTA, CNRS UMR7639, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France

Date of this Version

9-24-2004

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 135005 (2004). http://prl.aps.org. Copyright © 2004 American Physical Society. Permission to use.

Abstract

We demonstrate that a beam of x-ray radiation can be generated by simply focusing a single high-intensity laser pulse into a gas jet. A millimeter-scale laser-produced plasma creates, accelerates, and wiggles an ultrashort and relativistic electron bunch. As they propagate in the ion channel produced in the wake of the laser pulse, the accelerated electrons undergo betatron oscillations, generating a femtosecond pulse of synchrotron radiation, which has keV energy and lies within a narrow (50 mrad) cone angle.