Controlled electron bunch generation in the few-cycle ultra-intense laser-solid interaction scenario

The generation of Maxwellian or exponentially decaying spectra in the interaction of ultra-intense ultra-short laser pulses with solid foils is very general observation both in experiments and simulations. Yet, the physical origin of this observation is not well understood. For a very idealized situation of plane wave, plane and cold target interaction, we show that both randomization between individual electron bunches accelerated by the laser through the plasma as well as randomization during a single bunch are not observable in particle-in-cell simulations. Hence they are not accountable for the apparent thermalization (exponential spectrum).