A Quantal, Partially Ordered Electron Structure as a Basis for a γFree Electron Laser (γ-FEL)

Abstract

When a rather cold electron bunch is transported during laser bubble acceleration in a strongly focusing plasma channel with typical forces of 100 GeV/m, it will form partially ordered long electron cylinders due to the relativistically longitudinal reduced repulsion between electrons, resulting in a long-range pair correlation function, when reaching energies in the laboratory above 0.5 GeV. During Compton back-scattering with a second laser, injected opposite to the electron bunch, the electron bunch will be further modulated with micro bunches and due to its ordered structure will reflect coherently, Mössbauer-like, resulting in a γfree electron laser (γ-FEL). Increasing the relativistic γfactor, the quantal regime becomes more dominant. We discuss the scaling laws with γ.