Generation of overdense and high-energy electron-positron-pair plasmas by irradiation of a thin foil with two ultraintense lasers

Abstract

A scheme for enhanced quantum electrodynamics (QED) production of electron-positron-pair plasmas is proposed that uses two ultraintense lasers irradiating a thin solid foil from opposite sides. In the scheme, under a proper matching condition, in addition to the skin-depth emission of γ-ray photons and Breit-Wheeler creation of pairs on each side of the foil, a large number of high-energy electrons and photons from one side can propagate through it and interact with the laser on the other side, leading to much enhanced γ-ray emission and pair production. More importantly, the created pairs can be collected later and confined to the center by opposite laser radiation pressures when the foil becomes transparent, resulting in the formation of unprecedentedly overdense and high-energy pair plasmas. Two-dimensional QED particle-in-cell simulations show that electron-positron-pair plasmas with overcritical density 10(22) cm(-3) and a high energy of 100s of MeV are obtained with 10 PW lasers at intensities 10(23) W/cm(2), which are of key significance for laboratory astrophysics studies.

Dense GeV electron–positron pairs generated by lasers in near-critical-density plasmas

“…3c). This peak density is much higher than that reported in the both BW and BH experiments as well as relevant simulations8910111213141516192728293031. The total positron yield is as high as 1.05 × 10 11 , which is more than an order of magnitude larger than that in laser foil interactions27, although our laser intensity is lower by more than an order of magnitude.…”

“…Assuming equal beams and Gaussian profiles in all dimensions with a beam size, conservatively, for example, , it is estimated that the peak geometric luminosity of such a 4−5 GeV centre-of-mass (CM) e − e + collider is as high as 10 33  cm −2  s −1 , which is comparable to the state-of-art colliders worldwide3. One may even scale the proposed scheme to TeV CM e − e + collision, which is a unique feature of our scheme as compared with the others8910111213141516262728293031.…”

“…This opens the door for studying light–matter interactions as well as QED effects in unexplored domains142122. Diverse schemes have been proposed for energetic e − e + pairs production via the BW process using ultrarelativistic lasers232425262728293031. It is shown that using multiple colliding lasers25 for pair cascades in vacuum can reduce the required laser intensity down to ∼10 26  W cm −2 .…”

Charged particle dynamics in multiple colliding electromagnetic waves. Survey of random walk, Lévy flights, limit circles, attractors and structurally determinate patterns

“…EM field configuration An electron interaction with an EM field formed by two counter-propagating waves has been addressed a number of times in high field theory using classical quantum electrodynamics approaches because it provides one of the basic EM configurations where important properties of a radiating electron can be revealed (e.g. see above cited publications Mendonca 1983;Di Piazza et al 2012;Lehmann & Spatschek 2012, 2016Gonoskov et al 2013Gonoskov et al , 2014Bashinov et al 2015;Bulanov et al 2015;Chang et al 2015;Esirkepov et al 2015;Lobet et al 2015;Bashinov, Kumar & Kim 2016;Grismayer et al 2016;Jirka et al 2016;Kirk 2016). Here, we present the results of the analysis of electron motion in a standing EM wave in order to compare them below with the radiating electron behaviour in a more complicated EM configuration formed by three or four waves with various polarizations.…”

Brilliant petawatt gamma-ray pulse generation in quantum electrodynamic laser-plasma interaction

“…As a promising radiation source, it has a broad range of applications in material science, nuclear physics, antimatter physics123, logistics for providing shipment security, medicine4 for sterilizing medical equipment and for treating some forms of cancer, e.g. gamma-knife surgery5.…”