Laser wakefield acceleration of short electron bunches

The theory of electron acceleration in a plasma wake wave is developed, and the dependence of the main characteristics of accelerated electron bunches on the wakefield parameters is investigated, It is shown that using a prebunching stage, under proper conditions, the final electron density of a compressed and accelerated bunch can exceed the initial electron beam density by orders of magnitude and that longitudinal bunch compression provides quasi-monoenergetic acceleration to high energies, It is demonstrated that, for an initial electron beam radius smaller than the optimal one for efficient beam trapping, the energy spread of the compressed and accelerated electron bunch and its length can be evaluated by using the simple analytical predictions of a one-dimensional (1-D) theory. The obtained analytical results are confirmed by three-dimensional (3-D) numerical modeling.