Generation and Acceleration of Isolated-Attosecond Electron Bunch in a Hollow-Channel Plasma Wakefield

Abstract

We propose a novel scheme for generating and accelerating simultaneously a dozen-GeV isolated attosecond electron bunch from an electron beam-driven hollow-channel plasma target. During the beam-target interaction, transverse oscillations of plasma electrons are induced, and subsequently, a radiative wakefield is generated. Meanwhile, a large number of plasma electrons of close to the speed of light are injected transversely from the position of the weaker radiative wakefield (e.g., the half-periodic node of the radiative wakefield) and converge towards the center of the hollow channel, forming an isolated attosecond electron bunch. Then, the attosecond electron bunch is significantly accelerated to high energies by the radiative wakefield. It is demonstrated theoretically and numerically that this scheme can efficiently generate an isolated attosecond electron bunch with a charge of more than 2 nC, a peak energy up to 13 GeV of more than 2 times that of the driving electron beam, a peak divergence angle of less than 5 mmrad, a duration of 276 as, and an energy conversion efficiency of 36.7% as well as a high stability as compared with the laser-beam drive case. Such an isolated attosecond electron bunch in the range of GeV would provide critical applications in ultrafast physics and high energy physics, etc.