Nonlinear Thomson scattering with ponderomotive control

Abstract

In nonlinear Thomson scattering, a relativistic electron reflects and re-radiates the photons of a laser pulse, converting optical light to x rays or beyond. While this extreme frequency conversion offers a promising source for probing high-energy-density materials and driving uncharted regimes of nonlinear quantum electrodynamics, conventional nonlinear Thomson scattering has inherent tradeoffs in its scaling with laser intensity. Here we discover that the ponderomotive control afforded by spatiotemporal pulse shaping enables novel regimes of nonlinear Thomson scattering that substantially enhance the scaling of the radiated power, emission angle, and frequency with laser intensity. By appropriately setting the velocity of the intensity peak, a spatiotemporally shaped pulse can increase the power radiated by orders of magnitude. The enhanced scaling with laser intensity allows for operation at significantly lower electron energies and can eliminate the need for a high-energy electron accelerator.

23 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Femtosecond x rays from laser-plasma accelerators
• All-optical Compton gamma-ray source
• Diffraction-free space-time beams
• Ultra-high brilliance multi-MeV $\gamma$-ray beam from non-linear Thomson scattering
• Spectral Bandwidth Reduction of Thomson Scattered Light by Pulse Chirping
• Spatiotemporal control of laser intensity through cross-phase modulation
• Optimizing Laser Pulses for Narrowband Inverse Compton Sources in the High-Intensity Regime
• Special unitary particle pusher for extreme fields

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Arbitrarily Structured Laser Pulses
• Exact solutions for the electromagnetic fields of a flying focus
• Signatures of vacuum birefringence in low-power flying focus pulses
• Charged particle beam transport in a flying focus pulse with orbital angular momentum
• An electron-beam based Compton scattering x-ray source for probing high-energy-density physics
• Ultrashort laser pulses with chromatic astigmatism
• Quasi-monochromatic bright gamma-ray generation from synchronized Compton scattering via azimuthal spatial-temporal coupling
• Enhanced quantum radiation with flying-focus laser pulses
• High-charge relativistic electrons by vacuum laser acceleration from plasma mirrors using flying focus pulses
• Flying focus with arbitrary directionality for spatiotemporal control of laser pulses