Wakefield-Dressed Relativistic Vortex Electrons in Plasma Accelerators
Abstract
Plasma wakefield acceleration is usually regarded as a classical mechanism for producing high- energy charged-particle beams. Here we show that an axisymmetric plasma wakefield can also act as a moving quantum structure that supports relativistic vortex electron states. Starting from the Dirac equation, we derive the electron spinor eigenstates with definite total angular momentum in an ideal bubble-regime wakefield. The transverse focusing field confines and quantizes the electron transverse motion into Laguerre-Gaussian vortex modes, while the longitudinal electric field acceler- ates the electron without destroying the symmetry-protected angular momenta. We further analyze the localized and off-axis vortex electron wave-packets, and non-ideal wakefield perturbations, and identify the conditions for preserving electron-vortex-state purity. These results suggest plasma wakefield as a route toward high-energy vortex electrons and extend plasma-based acceleration from classical beam dynamics to quantum-state control of relativistic particles.
Related
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- Maximization of accelerated charge in multibunch-driven plasma wakefield accelerators
- Imaging with GeV muons produced via laser-wakefield-accelerated electrons
BibTeX
@misc{bu2026wakefielddressed,
title = {{Wakefield-Dressed Relativistic Vortex Electrons in Plasma Accelerators}},
author = {Zhigang Bu and Lingang Zhang and Liangliang Ji},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.28301},
eprint = {2608.28301},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28301},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Wakefield-Dressed Relativistic Vortex Electrons in Plasma Accelerators
AU - Zhigang Bu
AU - Lingang Zhang
AU - Liangliang Ji
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.28301
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28301
AB - Plasma wakefield acceleration is usually regarded as a classical mechanism for producing high- energy charged-particle beams. Here we show that an axisymmetric plasma wakefield can also act as a moving quantum structure that supports relativistic vortex electron states. Starting from the Dirac equation, we derive the electron spinor eigenstates with definite total angular momentum in an ideal bubble-regime wakefield. The transverse focusing field confines and quantizes the electron transverse motion into Laguerre-Gaussian vortex modes, while the longitudinal electric field acceler- ates the electron without destroying the symmetry-protected angular momenta. We further analyze the localized and off-axis vortex electron wave-packets, and non-ideal wakefield perturbations, and identify the conditions for preserving electron-vortex-state purity. These results suggest plasma wakefield as a route toward high-energy vortex electrons and extend plasma-based acceleration from classical beam dynamics to quantum-state control of relativistic particles.
ER -