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Title: Laser-Particle Collider for Multi-GeV Photon Production

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters

As an alternative to Compton backscattering and bremsstrahlung, the process of colliding high-energy electron beams with strong laser fields can more efficiently provide both a cleaner and brighter source of photons in the multi-GeV range for fundamental studies in nuclear and quark-gluon physics. In order to favor the emission of high-energy quanta and minimize their decay into electron-positron pairs, the fields must not only be sufficiently strong, but also well localized. We here examine these aspects and develop the concept of a laser-particle collider tailored for high-energy photon generation. We show that the use of multiple colliding laser pulses with 0.4 PW of total power is capable of converting more than 18% of multi-GeV electrons passing through the high-field region into photons, each of which carries more than half of the electron initial energy.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1529700
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1576503
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Vol. 122 Journal Issue: 25; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 24 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (27)

Smilei : A collaborative, open-source, multi-purpose particle-in-cell code for plasma simulation journal January 2018
Modelling gamma-ray photon emission and pair production in high-intensity laser–matter interactions journal March 2014
On the design of experiments for the study of extreme field limits in the interaction of laser with ultrarelativistic electron beam
  • Bulanov, S. V.; Esirkepov, T. Zh.; Hayashi, Y.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 660, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2011.09.029
journal December 2011
Collapse and revival of electromagnetic cascades in focused intense laser pulses journal September 2014
Attractors and chaos of electron dynamics in electromagnetic standing waves journal September 2015
Radiation reaction in strong field QED journal October 2013
Petawatt class lasers worldwide journal January 2015
Giant collimated gamma-ray flashes journal April 2018
Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades journal July 2017
Extreme plasma states in laser-governed vacuum breakdown journal February 2018
Multi-GeV electron-positron beam generation from laser-electron scattering journal March 2018
Numerical modeling of radiation-dominated and quantum-electrodynamically strong regimes of laser-plasma interaction journal September 2011
Radiation emission from braided electrons in interacting wakefields journal September 2017
Radiation-dominated particle and plasma dynamics journal September 2018
Pair production in counter-propagating laser beams journal July 2009
Monte Carlo calculations of pair production in high-intensity laser–plasma interactions journal November 2010
Laser wakefield accelerator based light sources: potential applications and requirements journal July 2014
Radiative trapping in intense laser beams journal July 2016
Electron–positron cascades in multiple-laser optical traps journal November 2016
Leveraging extreme laser-driven magnetic fields for gamma-ray generation and pair production journal March 2018
Nonlinear Breit–Wheeler pair creation with bremsstrahlung γ rays journal March 2018
The extreme light infrastructure—nuclear physics (ELI-NP) facility: new horizons in physics with 10 PW ultra-intense lasers and 20 MeV brilliant gamma beams journal August 2018
Extremely high-intensity laser interactions with fundamental quantum systems journal August 2012
Generation of a wave packet tailored to efficient free space excitation of a single atom journal July 2012
Focusing characteristics of a 4 πparabolic mirror light-matter interface journal May 2017
Radiation rebound and quantum splash in electron-laser collisions journal September 2019
Polarized Ultrashort Brilliant Multi-GeV γ Rays via Single-Shot Laser-Electron Interaction journal January 2020

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