skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Leveraging extreme laser-driven magnetic fields for gamma-ray generation and pair production

Abstract

In this paper, the ability of an intense laser pulse to propagate in a classically over-critical plasma through the phenomenon of relativistic transparency is shown to facilitate the generation of strong plasma magnetic fields. Particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate that these fields significantly enhance the radiation rates of the laser-irradiated electrons, and furthermore they collimate the emission so that a directed and dense beam of multi-MeV gamma-rays is achievable. This capability can be exploited for electron–positron pair production via the linear Breit–Wheeler process by colliding two such dense beams. Finally, presented simulations show that more than 103 pairs can be produced in such a setup, and the directionality of the positrons can be controlled by the angle of incidence between the beams.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States). Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Center for Energy Research
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. CNRS and CEA and Univ. of Bordeaux (France). Center for Intense Lasers and Applications (CELIA)
  4. Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden (Germany). Inst. for Radiation Physics
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF); US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
OSTI Identifier:
1463499
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-18-21518
Journal ID: ISSN 0741-3335; TRN: US1902309
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC52-06NA25396; 1632777; ACI-1548562; FA9550-17-1-0382; EP/G054940/1; EP/G055165/1; EP/G056803/1
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 60; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 0741-3335
Publisher:
IOP Science
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; plasma channel; pair creation; high energy radiation; laser acceleration; relativistic transparency; ultra-high magnetic fields; plasma

Citation Formats

Jansen, O., Wang, T., Stark, D. J., d'Humieres, E., Toncian, T., and Arefiev, A. V. Leveraging extreme laser-driven magnetic fields for gamma-ray generation and pair production. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1088/1361-6587/aab222.
Jansen, O., Wang, T., Stark, D. J., d'Humieres, E., Toncian, T., & Arefiev, A. V. Leveraging extreme laser-driven magnetic fields for gamma-ray generation and pair production. United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/aab222
Jansen, O., Wang, T., Stark, D. J., d'Humieres, E., Toncian, T., and Arefiev, A. V. 2018. "Leveraging extreme laser-driven magnetic fields for gamma-ray generation and pair production". United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/aab222. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1463499.
@article{osti_1463499,
title = {Leveraging extreme laser-driven magnetic fields for gamma-ray generation and pair production},
author = {Jansen, O. and Wang, T. and Stark, D. J. and d'Humieres, E. and Toncian, T. and Arefiev, A. V.},
abstractNote = {In this paper, the ability of an intense laser pulse to propagate in a classically over-critical plasma through the phenomenon of relativistic transparency is shown to facilitate the generation of strong plasma magnetic fields. Particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate that these fields significantly enhance the radiation rates of the laser-irradiated electrons, and furthermore they collimate the emission so that a directed and dense beam of multi-MeV gamma-rays is achievable. This capability can be exploited for electron–positron pair production via the linear Breit–Wheeler process by colliding two such dense beams. Finally, presented simulations show that more than 103 pairs can be produced in such a setup, and the directionality of the positrons can be controlled by the angle of incidence between the beams.},
doi = {10.1088/1361-6587/aab222},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1463499}, journal = {Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion},
issn = {0741-3335},
number = 5,
volume = 60,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Feb 26 00:00:00 EST 2018},
month = {Mon Feb 26 00:00:00 EST 2018}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 35 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Figures / Tables:

FIG. 1 FIG. 1: Electron trajectory in a plane wave with a normalized amplitude a0 = 100. The background color represents the wave electric and magnetic fields acting on the electron, normalized to their maximum amplitudes. The relative size of the markers along the trajectory represents the changing γ-factor, while the color-codingmore » represents the value of η.« less

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

Extreme Light Infrastructure–Nuclear Physics (ELI–NP): New Horizons for Photon Physics in Europe
journal, February 2011


A compact synchrotron radiation source driven by a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator
journal, December 2007


All-Optical Radiation Reaction at 1 0 21 W / cm 2
journal, September 2014


Novel aspects of radiation reaction in the ultrarelativistic quantum regime
journal, November 2013


Extended particle-in-cell schemes for physics in ultrastrong laser fields: Review and developments
journal, August 2015


High-Power γ -Ray Flash Generation in Ultraintense Laser-Plasma Interactions
journal, May 2012


Influence of Ion Mass on Laser-Energy Absorption and Synchrotron Radiation at Ultrahigh Laser Intensities
journal, May 2013


Near QED regime of laser interaction with overdense plasmas
journal, May 2014


Enhanced Multi-MeV Photon Emission by a Laser-Driven Electron Beam in a Self-Generated Magnetic Field
journal, May 2016


Principles and applications of compact laser–plasma accelerators
journal, June 2008


Collision of Two Light Quanta
journal, December 1934


The physics of gamma-ray bursts
journal, January 2005


Electron–positron pairs in physics and astrophysics: From heavy nuclei to black holes
journal, February 2010


Positron Production in Multiphoton Light-by-Light Scattering
journal, September 1997


Modelling gamma-ray photon emission and pair production in high-intensity laser–matter interactions
journal, March 2014


All-optical Compton gamma-ray source
journal, April 2012


Novel aspects of direct laser acceleration of relativistic electrons
journal, May 2015


Beyond the ponderomotive limit: Direct laser acceleration of relativistic electrons in sub-critical plasmas
journal, April 2016


Universal scalings for laser acceleration of electrons in ion channels
journal, October 2016


Parametric Amplification of Laser-Driven Electron Acceleration in Underdense Plasma
journal, April 2012


Contemporary particle-in-cell approach to laser-plasma modelling
journal, September 2015


Temporal resolution criterion for correctly simulating relativistic electron motion in a high-intensity laser field
journal, January 2015


A photon–photon collider in a vacuum hohlraum
journal, May 2014


Electron–positron pairs beaming in the Breit–Wheeler process
journal, October 2016


Tree code for collision detection of large numbers of particles applied to the Breit–Wheeler process
journal, February 2018


Pair creation in collision of γ -ray beams produced with high-intensity lasers
journal, January 2016


Dense Electron-Positron Plasmas and Ultraintense γ rays from Laser-Irradiated Solids
journal, April 2012


Relativistic Plasma Polarizer: Impact of Temperature Anisotropy on Relativistic Transparency
journal, July 2015


Works referencing / citing this record:

Axion-like-particle decay in strong electromagnetic backgrounds
journal, December 2019


Harnessing the relativistic Buneman instability for laser-ion acceleration in the transparency regime
journal, June 2018


High power gamma flare generation in multi-petawatt laser interaction with tailored targets
journal, December 2018


Structured targets for detection of Megatesla-level magnetic fields through Faraday rotation of XFEL beams
journal, January 2019


Ion acceleration in laser generated megatesla magnetic vortex
journal, October 2019


Gamma photons and electron-positron pairs from ultra-intense laser-matter interaction: A comparative study of proposed configurations
journal, November 2019


All-optical generation of petawatt gamma radiation via inverse Compton scattering from laser interaction with tube target
journal, June 2019


Impact of ion dynamics on laser-driven electron acceleration and gamma-ray emission in structured targets at ultra-high laser intensities
journal, June 2019


Multi-stage scheme for nonlinear Breit–Wheeler pair-production utilising ultra-intense laser-solid interactions
journal, July 2019


The unexpected role of evolving longitudinal electric fields in generating energetic electrons in relativistically transparent plasmas
journal, September 2018


Creation of Electron-Positron Pairs in Photon-Photon Collisions Driven by 10-PW Laser Pulses
journal, January 2019


Laser-Particle Collider for Multi-GeV Photon Production
journal, June 2019


Ion Acceleration in Laser Generated Mega Tesla Magnetic Vortex
text, January 2019


Axion-like-particle decay in strong electromagnetic backgrounds
journal, December 2019