Proton acceleration with intense twisted laser light

An efficient approach that considers a high-intensity twisted laser of moderate energy (few J) is proposed to generate collimated proton bunches with multi-10 MeV energies from double-layer hydrogen target. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate the formation highly and energetic ($\ensuremath{\sim}40$ MeV) bunch, whose divergence $\ensuremath{\sim}6.5$ times smaller compared bunch driven by Gaussian containing same energy. Supported theoretical modeling relativistic self-focusing in near-critical plasma, we establish regime allows for consistent acceleration high-energetic low under experimentally feasible conditions drivers.