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Resonant Excitation of Surface Plasmon for Wakefield Acceleration by Beating GW Lasers on Smooth Cylindrical Surface

Bifeng Lei1,2,*, Hao Zhang1,2, Alexandre Bonatto3, Bin Liu4, Javier Resta-López5,6, Matt Zepf7,8, Guoxing Xia9,2, and Carsten Welsch1,2

  • *Contact author: bifeng.lei@liverpool.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 105002 – Published 4 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/2dkn-db5z

Abstract

We present a theoretical and numerical study of resonant surface-plasmon (SP) excitation driven by the beating of two copropagating laser pulses on a smooth cylindrical plasma-vacuum interface. Analytical formulas for the SP dispersion relation, field amplitude, geometric coupling factor, and resonance conditions are derived and validated by fully three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We show that the curvature-modified SP dispersion enables the optical beat wave to resonantly drive an axial SP wakefield that leaks into the vacuum channel. This enables a grating-free surface-plasmon phase-matching mechanism, which is not available on a smooth planar interface. Under matched resonance conditions, few-gigawatt (GW) lasers can drive tens of GV/m SP wakefields and initiate electron trapping, while tens to hundreds of GW drivers can reach sub-TV/m fields. It therefore opens a low-power, grating-free route toward portable laser-driven surface plasma wakefield accelerators.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 105002– Published 4 September, 2026
  • Received 16 February 2026
  • Accepted 6 August 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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