The acceleration of charged particles, producing collimated mono-energeticbeams, over short distances holds the promise to offer new tools in medicineand diagnostics. Here, we consider a possible mechanism for acceleratingprotons to high energies by using a phase-modulated circularly polarizedelectromagnetic wave propagating along a constant magnetic field. It isobserved that a plane wave with dimensionless amplitude of 0.1 is capable toaccelerate a 1 KeV proton to 386 MeV under optimum conditions. Finally wediscuss possible limitations of the acceleration scheme.
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