Positron Generation and Acceleration in a Self-Organized Photon Collider Enabled by an Ultraintense Laser Pulse.
Phys Rev Lett
; 131(6): 065102, 2023 Aug 11.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37625047
ABSTRACT
We discovered a simple regime where a near-critical plasma irradiated by a laser of experimentally available intensity can self-organize to produce positrons and accelerate them to ultrarelativistic energies. The laser pulse piles up electrons at its leading edge, producing a strong longitudinal plasma electric field. The field creates a moving gamma-ray collider that generates positrons via the linear Breit-Wheeler process-annihilation of two gamma rays into an electron-positron pair. At the same time, the plasma field, rather than the laser, serves as an accelerator for the positrons. The discovery of positron acceleration was enabled by a first-of-its-kind kinetic simulation that generates pairs via photon-photon collisions. Using available laser intensities of 10^{22} W/cm^{2}, the discovered regime can generate a GeV positron beam with a divergence angle of around 10° and a total charge of 0.1 pC. The result paves the way to experimental observation of the linear Breit-Wheeler process and to applications requiring positron beams.
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MEDLINE
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En
Ano de publicação:
2023
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Article