Scaling laws for the (de-)polarization time of relativistic particle beams in strong fields

Abstract

The acceleration of polarized electrons and protons in strong laser and plasma fields is a very attractive option to obtain polarized beams in the GeV range. We investigate the feasibility of particle acceleration in strong fields without destroying an initial polarization, taking into account all relevant mechanisms that could cause polarization losses, i.e. the spin precession described by the T-BMT equation, the Sokolov-Ternov effect and the Stern-Gerlach force. Scaling laws for the (de-)polarization time caused by these effects reveal that the dominant polarization limiting effect is the rotation of the single particle spins around the local electromagnetic fields. We compare our findings to test-particle simulations for high energetic electrons moving in a homogeneous electric field. For high particle energies the observed depolarization times are in good agreement with the analytically estimated ones.

17 pages and 4 figures

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• Kinetic theory for spin-polarized relativistic plasmas
• Polarized proton acceleration in ultra-intense laser interaction with near critical density plasmas
• Spin-polarized electron beam generation in the colliding-pulse injection scheme
• Control of electron beam polarization in the bubble regime of laser-wakefield acceleration
• Colliding Pulse Injection of Polarized Electron Bunches in a Laser-Plasma Accelerator
• Acceleration of spin-polarized proton beams via two parallel laser pulses
• On the robustness of spin polarization for magnetic vortex accelerated proton bunches in density down-ramps
• Spin-polarized ${}^3$He shock waves from a solid-gas composite target at high laser intensities
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