Particle Refraction, Reflection and Channeling by Laser Beams.pdf

Particle Refraction, Reflection and Channeling by Laser Beams X. Artru 1) , K.A. Ispirian 2)* and M.K. Ispiryan 3) 1) Institut de Physique Nucleare de Lyon, CNRS/IN2P3 and Universite Claude-Bernard Lyon-1 2) Yerevan Physics Institute, Yerevan, Armenia (corresponding author; email: karo@mail.yerphi.am) 3) University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA Abstract It is shown that the charged particles are refracted and reflected on the boundary of field free and laser field regions in vacuum. Simple and transparent estimates are given which show the possibility of channeling of charged and neutral particles having polarizability by strong electromagnetic field of certain laser bunches just as by the field of orientated crystalline planes and axes. These processes can be applied for production of femtosecond sliced electron bunches, for measurement their length and particle distribution as well as for production of femtosecond X-ray and terahertz pulses using transition, channeling and other types of radiation. 1. Introduction The possibility of handling of the charged high energy particles by channeling [1], by recently discovered reflection [2], etc, by the strong atomic fields of the order of ~10 8 V/cm of crystallographic planes is well known. However little is known on the application of the stronger electromagnetic fields of intense laser beams for the same purposes though there is a progress in the field of advanced methods of particle acceleration [3] and for some other purposes. The reflection of low energy electrons from standing light waves has been predicted by Kapitza and Dirac [4] and has been observed using laser beams in the work [5]. The possibility of reflection of electrons by evanescent waves produced during total reflection of femtosecond light pulses from the 1 interface between dielectric and vacuum has been considered in [6]. Considering the motion of electrons in harmonic electromagnetic field due to Lorentz force aft