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A method of using intense Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) laser pulse is proposed to generate ultrarelativistic (multi-GeV) electron beams with controllable helical structures based on a hybrid electron acceleration regime in underdense plasmas, where both the longitudinal charge-separation electric field and transverse laser electric field play the role of accelerating the electrons. By directly interacting with the LG laser pulse, the topological structure of the accelerated electron beam is manipulated and it is spatially separated into multi-slice helical bunches. These results are clearly demonstrated by our three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and explained by a theoretical model based on electron phase-space dynamics. This novel regime offers a new degree of freedom for manipulating ultrashort and ultrarelativistic electrons, and it provides an efficient way for generating high-energy high-angular-momentum helical electron beams, which may find applications in wide-ranging areas.

We have studied here the geometrodynamics of relativistic electron vortex beams from the perspective of the geometric phase associated with the scalar electron encircling the vortex line. It is pointed out that the electron vortex beam carrying orbital angular momentum is a natural consequence of the skyrmion model of a fermion. This follows from the quantization procedure of a fermion in the framework of Nelson's stochastic mechanics when a direction vector (vortex line) is introduced to depict the spin degrees of freedom. In this formalism, a fermion is depicted as a scalar particle encircling a vortex line. It is here shown that when the Berry phase acquired by the scalar electron encircling the vortex line involves quantized Dirac monopole, we have paraxial (non-paraxial) beam when the vortex line is parallel (orthogonal) to the wavefront propagation direction. Non-paraxial beams incorporate spin-orbit interaction. When the vortex line is tilted with respect to the propagation direction, the Berry phase involves non-quantized monopole. The temporal variation of the direction of the tilted vortices is studied here taking into account the renormalization group flow of the monopole charge and it is predicted that this gives rise to the spin Hall effect.

Atomic-size vortex beams have great potential in probing the magnetic moment of materials at atomic scales. However, the limited depth of field of vortex beams constrains the probing depth in which the helical phase front is preserved. On the other hand, electron channeling in crystals can counteract beam divergence and extend the vortex beam without disrupting its topological charge. Specifically, in this article, we report that atomic vortex beams with topological charge ±1 can be coupled to the 2p columnar bound states and propagate for more than 50 nm without being dispersed and losing its helical phase front. We give numerical solutions to the 2p columnar orbitals and tabulate the characteristic size of the 2p states of two typical elements, Co and Dy, for various incident beam energies and various atomic densities. The tabulated numbers allow estimates of the optimal convergence angle for maximal coupling to 2p columnar orbital. We have also developed analytic formulae for beam energy, convergence angle, and hologram-dependent scaling for various characteristic sizes. These length scales are useful for the design of pitch-fork apertures and operations of microscopes in the vortex-beam imaging mode.