Characterization of relativistic electrons generated by a cone guiding laser pulse

We demonstrated the interaction of a gold cone target with a femto second (fs) laser pulse above the relativistic intensity of 1.37× 10¹⁸ μm ²W/cm². Relativistic electrons with energy above 2 MeV were observed. A 25%--40% increase of the electron temperature is achieved compared to the case when a plane gold target is used. The electron temperature increase results from the guiding of the laser beam at the tip and the intense quasistatic magnetic field in the cone geometry. The behavior of the relativistic electrons is verified in our 2D-PIC simulations.