Efficient bright gamma-ray vortex emission from a laser-illuminated light-fan-in-channel target

Year: 2021

Authors: Zhang, H.; Zhao, J.; Hu, YT.; Li, QN.; Lu, Y.; Cao, Y.; Zou, DB.; Sheng, ZM.; Pegoraro F.; McKenna, P.; Shao, FQ.; Yu, TP.

Autors Affiliation: Natl Univ Def Technol, Dept Phys, Changsha 410073, Peoples R China; Univ Strathclyde, Dept Phys, SUPA, Glasgow G4 0NG, Lanark, Scotland; Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ, Collaborat Innovat Ctr IFSA CICIFSA, Key Lab Laser Plasmas MoE, Shanghai 200240, Peoples R China; Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ, Sch Phys & Astron, Shanghai 200240, Peoples R China; Tsung Dao Lee Inst, Shanghai 200240, Peoples R China; Univ Pisa, Dept Phys Enrico Fermi, I-56122 Pisa, Italy; Univ Pisa, CNR, INO, I-56122 Pisa, Italy.

Abstract: X/gamma-rays have many potential applications in laboratory astrophysics and particle physics. Although several methods have been proposed for generating electron, positron, and X/gamma-photon beams with angular momentum (AM), the generation of ultra-intense brilliant gamma-rays is still challenging. Here, we present an all-optical scheme to generate a high-energy gamma-photon beam with large beam angular momentum (BAM), small divergence, and high brilliance. In the first stage, a circularly polarized laser pulse with intensity of 10(22 )W/cm(2) irradiates a micro-channel target, drags out electrons from the channel wall, and accelerates them to high energies via the longitudinal electric fields. During the process, the laser transfers its spin angular momentum (SAM) to the electrons’ orbital angular momentum (OAM). In the second stage, the drive pulse is reflected by the attached fan-foil and a vortex laser pulse is thus formed. In the third stage, the energetic electrons collide head-on with the reflected vortex pulse and transfer their AM to the gamma-photons via nonlinear Compton scattering. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that the peak brilliance of the gamma-ray beam is similar to 10(22) photons.s(-1).mm(-2).mrad(-2) per 0.1% bandwidth at 1 MeV with a peak instantaneous power of 25 TW and averaged BAM of 10(6) h/photon. The AM conversion efficiency from laser to the gamma-photons is unprecedentedly 0.67%.

Journal/Review: HIGH POWER LASER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Volume: 9      Pages from: e43-1  to: e43-11

More Information: This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFA0404802), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11875319, 11705280, 11774430, and 11775144), the Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province (Grant No. 2020RC4020), Research Project of NUDT (Grant Nos. ZK18-02-02 and ZK18-03-09), and Fok Ying-Tong Education Foundation (Grant No. 161007). H. Zhang, Y. T. Hu, J. Zhao, and Y. Lu acknowledge the financial support by Hunan Provincial Research and Innovation Foundation for Graduate Students of China (Grant Nos. CX20190017, CX20190018, CX20200002, and CX20200038).
KeyWords: Laser-plasma; Interaction gamma-rays; Orbital angular-momentum; Plasma mirror; Pulses.
DOI: 10.1017/hpl.2021.29

Citations: 19
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