Brilliant gamma-ray beam and electron–positron pair production by enhanced attosecond pulses

Abstract

Electron-positron pair production via Breit-Wheeler process requires laser intensities approaching 10 24 W cm −2 due to the small cross-section. Here, we propose a mechanism for brilliant γ-ray emission and dense GeV pairs creation accompanied with highharmonic generation by using plasma mirror and an ultra short pulse with the intensity of 3 × 10 23 W cm −2. The laser is reflected by the solid surface after propagating tens of microns in a near-critical density plasma and breaks into short wave packets. The intensity of the reflected high order harmonic field is enhanced by the focusing and compression effects from the deformed oscillating mirror. The radiation trapped electrons emit γ-photons while colliding with the reflected attosecond pulses. The peak intensity of the γ-ray reaches 0.74 PW with the brilliance of 2 × 10 24 s −1 mm −2 mrad −2 (0.1%BW) −1 (at 58 MeV). A GeV positron beam is obtained with density of 4 × 10 21 cm −3 and a particle number of 5.6 × 10 9 .

Observation of a high degree of stopping for laser-accelerated intense proton beams in dense ionized matter

“…Ultra-high-intensity lasers (10 18 -10 22 W/cm 2 ) have opened up perspectives in many fields of research and application [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] . By irradiating a thin foil with ultra-high-intensity lasers, an ultrahigh accelerating field (1 TV/m) can be formed and multi-MeV ions with high intensity (10 10 A/cm 2 ) in short timescale (~ps) are produced [45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] .…”

Gamma-ray flash in the interaction of a tightly focused single-cycle ultra-intense laser pulse with a solid target

“…2002; Koga, Esirkepov & Bulanov 2005; Gu et al. 2018). Another early approach toincreasing the -photon yield suggested the use of two counter-propagating pulses (Bell & Kirk 2008; Kirk, Bell & Arka 2009; Luo et al.…”

Onset of electron-seeded cascades in generic electromagnetic fields

“…A byproduct of setting up cascades with a single laser pulse is production of collimated gamma-rays with spe-cific properties. Cascades produced by irradiating solid targets with high intensity laser pulses are known to effectively convert laser energy into hard gamma quanta [65][66][67][68][69][70][71]. An A-type cascade arising at interaction of a GeV electron beam with a focused laser pulse of intensity I ∼ 10 26 W/cm 2 should also serve as a bright source of collimated (emitted towards the laser pulse propagation direction) GeV photons.…”