Ponderomotive snowplow electron acceleration with high energy tilted ultrafast laser pulses

Ponderomotive snowplow electron acceleration with high energy tilted ultrafast laser pulses | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Ponderomotive snowplow electron acceleration with high energy tilted ultrafast laser pulses Patrick Hunt, Alex Wilhelm, Daniel Adams, Shoujun Wang, Reed Hollinger, and 6 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4177060/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The application high intensity ultrafast lasers to compact plasma-based electron accelerators has recently been an extremely active area of research. Here, for the first time, we show experimentally and theoretically that carefully sculpting an intense ultrafast pulse in the spatio-temporal domain allows ponderomotive pressure to be used for direct acceleration of electron bunches from rest to relativistic energies. With subluminal group velocity and above-threshold intensity, a laser pulse can capture and accelerate electrons, pushing on them like a snowplow. Acceleration of electrons from rest requires a substantial reduction of group velocity. In this demonstration experiment, we achieve a group velocity of ∼0.6c in a tilted pulse by focusing the output of a novel asymmetric pulse compressor we developed for the petawatt-class ALEPH system at Colorado State University. This direct laser-electron approach opens a route towards exploiting optical spatio-temporal control techniques to sculpt electron beams with desired properties such as narrow energy and angular distributions. The tilted-pulse snowplow technique can be scaled from small-scale to facility-scale amplifiers to produce short electron bunches in the 10 keV−10 MeV range for applications including ultrafast electron diffraction and efficient injection into laser wakefield accelerators for acceleration beyond the GeV level. Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical physics/Ultrafast photonics Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Lasers, LEDs and light sources/Ultrafast lasers Physical sciences/Physics/Optical physics/Ultrafast photonics Ponderomotive potential particle acceleration ultrafast pulses spatial chirp spatio-temporal shaping Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4177060","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":284944064,"identity":"0a598a4a-961b-41bc-8196-d022b3c1503f","order_by":0,"name":"Patrick 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