Measuring quantum radiation reaction in laser--electron-beam collisions

Abstract

Today's high-intensity laser facilities produce short pulses can, in tight focus, reach peak intensities of $10^{22}{\mathrm{Wcm}}^{-2}$ and, in long focus, wakefield-accelerate electrons to GeV energies. The radiation-reaction--dominated regime, where the recoil from stochastic photon emission becomes significant, can be reached in the collision of such an electron beam with an intense short pulse. Measuring the total energy emitted in gamma rays or the presence of a prominent depletion zone in the electron beam's post-collision energy spectrum would provide strong evidence of radiation reaction, provided enough electrons penetrate the region of highest laser intensity. Constraints on the accuracy of timing necessary to achieve this are given for a head-on collision.

References in corpus (10)

• Prolific pair production with high-power lasers
• QED cascades induced by circularly polarized laser fields
• Ultra-high brilliance multi-MeV $\gamma$-ray beam from non-linear Thomson scattering
• Nonlinear Compton scattering in ultra-short laser pulses
• Non-Linear Compton Scattering of Ultrashort and Ultraintense Laser Pulses
• Time-dependent pair cascades in magnetospheres of neutron stars I. Dynamics of the polar cap cascade with no particle supply from the neutron star surface
• Quantum radiation reaction in laser-electron beam collisions
• Strong signatures of radiation reaction below the radiation dominated regime
• Nonlinear double Compton scattering in the full quantum regime
• Robust signatures of quantum radiation reaction in focused ultrashort laser pulses

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Signatures of quantum effects on radiation reaction in laser -- electron-beam collisions
• Scaling laws for positron production in laser--electron-beam collisions
• Efficiently parallelized modeling of tightly focused, large bandwidth laser pulses