PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

An exact analytical solution for the equation of motion of a single relativistic electron, injected initially at some angle xi to the propagation direction of a linearly polarized plane-wave laser field of arbitrary intensity and a uniform electric field oriented anti-parallel to the laser propagation direction, is developed. The solution is then used to investigate the issue of electron acceleration to high energies in the prescribed fields. It is found that, in principle, an electron may be accelerated from rest or motion to several hundred GeV, if the uniform electric field strength E-s approaches a critical value E-s(c) = (m<()over tilde>c)/(2 pi Ne), where m and e are the mass and charge of the electron, c is the speed of light in vacuum, N is the number of field cycles in the pulse and <()over tilde> is the Doppler-shifted frequency of the laser field as seen by the electron upon initial injection. The radiation losses during acceleration are shown to be negligible and the spectrum of the radiation emitted along the initial direction of motion (parallel injection) of the electron is shown to consist mostly of the fundamental laser frequency.