Proton acceleration by circularly polarized traveling electromagnetic wave

Abstract

The acceleration of charged particles, producing collimated monoenergetic beams, over short distances holds the promise to offer new tools in medicine and diagnostics. Here, we consider a possible mechanism for accelerating protons to high energies by using a phase modulated circularly polarized electromagnetic wave propagating along a constant magnetic field. It is observed that a plane wave with dimensionless amplitude of 0.1 is capable to accelerate a 1 keV proton to 386 MeV under optimum conditions. Finally, we discuss possible limitations of the acceleration scheme.