2024/12/20 by Xing-Long Zhu, Min Chen, Zhu, Xing-Long +3
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Plasma Diagnostics and Applications #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #Magnetic confinement fusion research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.15706
The continuous development of bright x/gamma-ray sources has opened up new frontiers of science and advanced applications. Currently, there is still a lack of efficient approaches to produce gamma-rays with photon energies up to GeV and with high peak brilliance comparable to modern free-electron lasers. Here we report a novel mechanism called beam fast pinching radiation burst to generate such gamma-ray sources. It is achieved by injecting a GeV electron beam into a submillimeter plasma with an upramp density profile, enabling violent beam pinching to occur rapidly. During this process, a burst of collimated gamma-rays is efficiently produced with photon energy up to GeV, energy conversion efficiency exceeding 30%, and peak brilliance exceeding 1028 photons s-1 mm-2 mrad-2 per 0.1% bandwidth. All of these are several orders of magnitude higher than existing gamma-ray sources. This opens a novel avenue for the development of extremely bright gamma-ray sources for both fundamental research and cutting-edge applications.