title: Uniform laser-driven relativistic electron layer for coherent Thomson scattering.
abstract: A novel scheme is proposed to generate uniform relativistic electron layers for coherent Thomson backscattering. A few-cycle laser pulse is used to produce the electron layer from an ultrathin solid foil. The key element of the new scheme is an additional foil that reflects the drive-laser pulse, but lets the electrons pass almost unperturbed. Making use of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and well-known basic theory, it is shown that the electrons, after interacting with both the drive and reflected laser pulses, form a very uniform flyer freely cruising with a high relativistic γ factor exactly in the drive-laser direction (no transverse momentum). It backscatters the probe light with a full Doppler shift factor of 4γ(2). The reflectivity and its decay due to layer expansion are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA. hcwu@lanl.gov
authors.forename: H-C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Meyer-ter-Vehn
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fernández
authors.forename: B M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Hegelich
mesh_terms: D004583:Electrons; D007834:Lasers; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012542:Scattering, Radiation