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Coherent radiation reaction effects in laser-vacuum acceleration of electron bunches

The effects of coherently enhanced radiation reaction on the motion of subwavelength electron bunches in interaction with intense laser pulses are analyzed. The radiation reaction force behaves as a radiation pressure in the laser beam direction, combined with a viscous force in the perpendicular direction. Due to Coulomb expansion of the electron bunch, coherent radiation reaction effects only occur in the initial stage of the laser-bunch interaction while the bunch is still smaller than the wavelength. It is shown that this initial stage can have observable effects on the trajectory of the bunch. By scaling the system to larger bunch charges, these effects may be increased to such an extent that they can suppress the radial instability normally found in ponderomotive acceleration schemes, thereby enabling the full potential of laser-vacuum electron bunch acceleration to GeV energies.