2018/11/30 by J. Magnusson, Joel Magnusson, A. Gonoskov +10 · 53 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced X-ray Imaging Techniques #Annihilation #Atomic physics #Bremsstrahlung #Collider #Electron #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Laser #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #Nuclear physics #Optics #Pair production #Particle physics #Photon #Physics #Positron #Range (aeronautics) #physics.acc-ph #physics.plasm-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.122.254801
published in Physical Review Letters 122(25), 254801 (American Physical Society) · 6 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2018/11/30 · openalex publication_date 2019/06/27 · arxiv updated 2019/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
As an alternative to Compton backscattering and bremsstrahlung, the process of colliding high-energy electron beams with strong laser fields can more efficiently provide both a cleaner and brighter source of photons in the multi-GeV range for fundamental studies in nuclear and quark-gluon physics. In order to favor the emission of high-energy quanta and minimize their decay into electron-positron pairs, the fields must not only be sufficiently strong, but also well localized. We here examine these aspects and develop the concept of a laser-particle collider tailored for high-energy photon generation. We show that the use of multiple colliding laser pulses with 0.4 PW of total power is capable of converting more than 18% of multi-GeV electrons passing through the high-field region into photons, each of which carries more than half of the electron initial energy.