Commun. Theor. Phys. (Beijing, China) 45 (2006) pp.

167170 c International Academic Publishers

Vol. 45, No. 1, January 15, 2006

Attosecond x-Ray Pulse Generation by Linear Thomson Scattering of Intense Laser Beam with Relativistic Electron
TIAN You-Wei,1, YU Wei,1 LU Pei-Xiang,2 Vinod Senecha,3 HE Feng,1 DENG De-Gang,1 and XU Han1
1

State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China 2 State Key Laboratory of Laser Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
3

Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore- 452 013, India

(Received April 5, 2005; Revised July 18, 2005)

Abstract Linear Thomson scattering of a short pulse laser by relativistic electron has been investigated using computer
simulations. It is shown that scattering of an intense laser pulse of 33 fs full width at half maximum, with an electron of 0 = 10 initial energy, generates an ultrashort, pulsed radiation of 76 attoseconds with a photon wavelength of 2.5 nm in the backward direction. The scattered radiation generated by a highly relativistic electron has superior quality in terms of its pulse width and angular distribution in comparison to the one generated by lower relativistic energy electron. PACS numbers: 52.35.Ra, 52.35.Mw, 52.35.Qz

Key words: attosecond pulse, x-ray, linear Thomson scattering, relativistic electron

1 Introduction
The ability to study ultrafast phenomena has recently got a boost by the experimental production and measurement of a single, 650-attosecond (1018 sec), soft x-ray pulse.[1] The generation of sub-femtosecond pulses has opened up new vistas to explore the electron dynamics in an atom and strong nuclear interactions. Various schemes have been explored for the generation of subfemtosecond pulse in the visible range.[211] In an extreme ultraviolet range, the train of 250 attosecond (as) pulse with a few 10 eV photon energy has been experimentally demonstrated.[12,13] The next frontier will be production of attosecond x-ray pulses at even shorter wavelengths than presently demonstrated. The development of a compact, tunable, near monochromatic hard x-ray source will have profound and wide-ranging application in several research elds. These will include medical imaging, x-ray diagnostics, nuclear resonance absorption, x-ray microscopy, solid-state physics, and material sciences. We propose here a mechanism to generate the scattered radiation of an isolated, attosecond pulse duration, in the hard x-ray wavelength range by an electron interacting with a short, intense laser pulse. The interaction of free electrons with intense light waves has been studied in the past by many authors.[1418] Esarey et al. studied Thomson scattering by electrons and plasmas. Yu et al.[17] studied the strong frequency up-conversion by nonlinear Thomson scattering from relativistic electrons. In this paper, we report on the angular, spectral distribution, and the pulse width characteristics of the ra-

diation produced by a single counter-streaming electron irradiated by a 33 fs FWHM (full width at half maximum) laser pulse. The results show that with relativistic electron energy of 0 = 10 and a laser pulse of a0 = 0.1, ultrashort pulses of 80 as radiation with photons of 2.5 nm wavelength can be generated. Considering the angular distribution and the pulse width, the radiation generated by a highly relativistic energy electron has better pulse characteristic than the one generated by a lower relativistic energy electron.

2 Interaction Model and Formulation

A linear polarized Gaussian laser can be expressed as a() = a0 exp 2 cos() , x 2L2 (1)

where a0 is the peak amplitude normalized by mc2 /e, = z t, L = d/2, and d is the laser pulse width. In the above denitions, space and time coordinates are nor1 1 malized by k0 and 0 , respectively, where 0 and k0 are the laser frequency and wave number, respectively. m and e are the electron mass and charge, respectively. The conguration of laser-electron interaction is shown in Fig. 1. We assume that the laser pulse propagates along the +z axis and an electron initially approaches from the opposite direction. The scattered radiation distribution follows a functional form, n = sin x + cos , and is the y angle of radiation measured from direction of laser propagation. The scattering at = 180 is dened as backward

The project supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 10375083 and the Special Foundation for State Key Basic Research Program of China under Grant No. TG1999075206-2 E-mail: ywtian@mail.siom.ac.cn

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scattering.

t and t is given by t = t + R, R R0 n r , (9)

where R0 is the distance from the origin to the observer and r is the position vector of the electron. Here the observation point is assumed to be far away from the region of space, where acceleration occurs. The energy radiated in unit solid angle and unit frequency interval is given by[20] d2I = s2 d d
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram showing the Thomson scattering of an incident laser beam with an electron striking head-on.

n (n u) e is(tnr) dt ,

(10)

where d 2 I/d d is normalized by e2 /4 2 c, s = sb /0 , sb is the frequency of the backward scattering radiation.

The motion of an electron in an electromagnetic wave is described by the Lorentz equation,[19] dt (p a) =

a (u

3 Result and Discussion

a) ,

(2)

together with an energy equation dt = u t a , (3)

where u is the velocity of electron normalized by c, a is the vector potential normalized by mc2 /e, p = u is the normalized momentum, = (1 u2 )1/2 is the relativistic factor or normalized energy, and a in Eq. (2) acts on a only. Note that equations (2) and (3) are in the exact form. As the solution of 1D wave equation, the normalized vector potential a = a(). The quantities describing electron motion are assumed to be functions of as well. With z = and t = , one can obtain from Eqs. (2) and (3) u = a, (uz 1) = , (4) 1 = (1 + a2 + 2 ) . (5) 2 Here we have assumed the transverse velocity u = 0 when a = 0, is a constant to be determined by initial conditions. The motion of electron can be fully determined with velocity and displacement expressed as a u = , uz = 1 + , (6) 1 = ad , 1 z = 2 (2 1 a2 )d . (7) 2 Electron in relativistic motion emits radiation. The radiated power per unit solid angle is given by[20] dP (t) |n [(n u) dt u]| = d (1 n u)6
2

Fig. 2 The time history of the radiated power per solid angle (a) and the energy radiated per unit solid angle per unit frequency interval (b) in the backward direction for a0 = 0.1, d = 100 , and 0 = 10.

,
t

(8)

2 where the radiation power is normalized by e2 0 4c and t is the electron retardation time. The relation between

The time history of the radiated power per solid angle and the energy radiated per unit solid angle per unit frequency interval in the backward direction, = 180 , are plotted in Fig. 2(a) and 2(b). In the calculation, the

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electrons initial energy is 0 = 10, the peak amplitude of the laser pulse is a0 = 0.1 and the laser pulse width is d = 100 (0 is the wavelength and 0 = 1 m in our calculation). The estimated FWHM of the radiation pulse duration in the backward direction is 76 as (see Fig. 2(a)), which is an ultrashort attosecond pulse. The intensity of the attosecond pulse is about 1011 W/cm2 . One can see from Fig. 2(b) that the width of the radiated spectrum is broadened and upshifted. The phenomenon may be called ponderomotive broadening.[21] As the laser pulse travels through the electron, it is slowed down initially, and then speeded up by the ponderomotive eect due to the laser pulse. This velocity shift leads to frequency shifts in the emitted radiation spectrum, thereby increasing the width of the observed spectrum. The frequency of the highest intensity is about sb = 393 0 .

toward a laser pulse with the duration d , then the duration drefl d / 2 . By increasing the electrons initial energy further, one can obtain the zeptosecond (1021 sec) radiation.

Fig. 4 Dependence of backward scattering radiations frequency upshifting on the electrons initial energy. The solid line and the dotted line depicts the situation for d = 3000 and d = 100 , respectively. Other laser parameters are the same as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 3 Dependence of FWHM of the backward scattered radiation pulse duration on the initial energy of the electron. The laser parameters are the same as those described in Fig. 2.

Figure 3 shows the FWHM (d1 ) of the radiation pulse duration of the backward scattering radiation as a function of the electrons initial energy. The laser parameters used in this calculation are the same as given in Fig. 2. We notice that the duration of the radiated pulse decreases with the increase in the initial energy of the electron. The scaling of the pulse width with the initial energy of the electron is estimated approximately as d d1 2 . (11) 0 When 0 = 10, d1 76 as, and while when 0 = 30, d1 7.3 as which is two orders of magnitude lower than the recent results obtained in the higher-order harmonic experiments.[1,12,13] The electron can be considered as an ideal mirror and when ideal mirror moves with 1,

Fig. 5 The angular distribution curves of the radiated power per solid angle for dierent energies of electron is plotted. The laser parameters are the same as shown in Fig. 2. for comparison, the radiations are normalized to their own maximum values.

Figure 4 shows the dependence of the frequency of the backward scattering radiation upshifting on the initial electron energy, where d = 3000 (solid line), d = 100 (dotted line). The other laser parameters are the same as given in Fig. 2. Yu et al.[17] studied the frequency upshifting for linear Thomson scattering under the long laser

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pulse. They found that the backward scattering is optimum for frequency upshifting with sb /0 = (1 u)/(1 + 2 u) 40 (solid line). One can clearly see that the frequency upshifting of the backward scattering radiation under the short pulse laser (d = 100 ) is identical with that under the long pulse laser (d = 3000 ). From Fig. 4, one can see that sb 1000 for 0 = 5 and sb 36000 for 0 = 30. Therefore, we can obtain the short wave length radiations by increasing the initial energy of the electron. Radiation characteristics are investigated for various initial energy (0 ) of electron. The angular () distribution of the radiated power per unit solid angle is plotted in Fig. 5 for 0 = 10, 20, and 30, respectively. The laser parameters in this calculation are the same as shown in Fig. 2. In Fig. 5, each radiation is normalized to its maximum for easy comparison of the angular distributions between dierent initial energies of the electron. One can see that the scattered radiation is accumulated in a sharp cone centered in the backscattering direction and the radiated power per solid angle is optimum in the backward. As the initial energy of the electron increases, the cone becomes more and more narrower, that is, the collimation of the scattered radiation becomes better.

4 Conclusions
The linear Thomson scattering of a short pulse laser by a single relativistic electron has been investigated numerically. It is shown that a relativistic electron interacting with an incident counterstreaming short pulse laser emits attosecond x-ray pulse, the frequency upshifting of the backward scattered radiation under the short laser pulse is identical with that under the long laser pulse. The FWHM of the radiation pulse duration of the backward scattered radiation decreases with increase in the initial energy of the electron, and the collimation of the scattered radiation becomes sharper. The investigations have further revealed that this mechanism has a potential application to produce an ultrashort pulse in the attosecond and sub-attosecond time scales. Further, investigations will be required to include the eect of scattering from the electron bunch, that is, electrons at dierent positions emitting radiations with time interval in the electrons view cone. The phase matching of the radiations from dierent electrons will be addressed in the future work.

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