Gamma-ray generation in ultrahigh-intensity laser-foil interactions

Abstract

Incoherent photon emission by ultrarelativistic electrons in the normal incidence of a laser pulse on a foil is investigated by means of three-dimensional numerical simulations in the range of intensities $2\times 10^{21}\text{–}2\times 10^{25}\text{W}{\text{cm}}^{-2}$ and electron densities $2\times 10^{22}\text{–}1\times 10^{24}{\text{cm}}^{-3}$. We focus on properties of the resulting synchrotron radiation, such as its overall energy, directivity of the radiation pattern and slope of the energy spectrum. Regimes of laser-foil interactions are studied in the framework of a simple analytical model. The laser-plasma parameters for efficient gamma-ray generation are found and revealed to be close to the parameters for relativistic foil motion. It is shown that in the case of oblique incidence of a $3\text{PW}$, $10\text{fs}$ laser pulse on a thin foil about $10^8\text{photons}/0.1\%\text{bandwidth}$ are produced at the energy level of $1\text{MeV}$ that significantly exceeds performance of the modern Compton gamma-ray sources. Various applications of the gamma-ray bunches are discussed.

Copyright 2014 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Physics of Plasmas and may be found at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/pop/21/1/10.1063/1.4863423

References in corpus (9)

• Radiation Pressure Dominate Regime of Relativistic Ion Acceleration
• Prolific pair production with high-power lasers
• All-optical Compton gamma-ray source
• QED cascades induced by circularly polarized laser fields
• Enhanced relativistic harmonics by electron nanobunching
• A matterless double slit
• Double-slit vacuum polarisation effects in ultra-intense laser fields
• Strong field electrodynamics of a thin foil
• Radiation Emission by Extreme Relativistic Electrons and Pair Production by Hard Photons in a Strong Plasma Wakefield

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Implementing nonlinear Compton scattering beyond the local constant field approximation
• Light fan driven by relativistic laser pulse
• Optimized multibeam configuration for observation of QED cascades
• Bright X-ray source from a laser-driven micro-plasma-waveguide
• Production and dynamics of positrons in ultrahigh intensity laser-foil interactions
• Theory of relativistic radiation reflection from plasmas
• Laser-driven hole boring and gamma-ray emission in high-density plasmas
• Onset of electron-seeded cascades in generic electromagnetic fields
• Photon emission by bremsstrahlung and nonlinear Compton scattering in the interaction of ultraintense laser and plasmas
• Creation of electron-positron plasma with superstrong laser field
• Synchrotron radiation from ultrahigh-intensity laser-plasma interactions and competition with Bremsstrahlung in thin foil targets
• Near-surface electron acceleration during intense laser-solid interaction in the grazing incidence regime
• Weibel instability in hot plasma flows with production of gamma-rays and electron-positron pairs
• Incoherent synchrotron emission of laser-driven plasma edge
• Asymptotic electron motion in strong radiation-dominated regime
• Radiation from laser-microplasma-waveguide interactions in the ultra-intense regime
• Creating QED Photon Jets with Present-Day Lasers
• Collimated $\gamma$-flash emission along the target surface irradiated by a laser at non-grazing incidence