Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 115, Issue 40, Pages 9911-9916Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1809649115
Keywords
high-energy high-brightness gamma ray; strong field QED process; ultraintense laser matter interaction; high-energy density physics; particle-in-cell simulation
Categories
Funding
- National Key R&D Program of China [2018YFA0404801]
- Science Challenge Project of China [TZ2016005]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [11775302, 11721091, 11775144, 11655002, 11520101003]
- Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDB16010200, XDB07030300]
- Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality [16DZ2260200]
- Leverhulme Trust Research Grant at the University of Strathclyde
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [EP/L000237/1]
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [EP/R029148/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- EPSRC [EP/R029148/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Even though high-quality X- and gamma rays with photon energy below mega-electron volt (MeV) are available from large-scale X-ray free electron lasers and synchrotron radiation facilities, it remains a great challenge to generate bright gamma rays over 10 MeV. Recently, gamma rays with energies up to the MeV level were observed in Compton scattering experiments based on laser wakefield accelerators, but the yield efficiency was as low as 10(-6), owing to low charge of the electron beam. Here, we propose a scheme to efficiently generate gamma rays of hundreds of MeV from submicrometer wires irradiated by petawatt lasers, where electron accelerating and wiggling are achieved simultaneously. The wiggling is caused by the quasistatic electric and magnetic fields induced around the wire surface, and these are so high that even quantum electrodynamics (QED) effects become significant for gamma-ray generation, although the driving lasers are only at the petawatt level. Our full 3D simulations show that directional, ultrabright gamma rays are generated, containing 10(12) photons between 5 and 500 MeV within a 10-fs duration. The brilliance, up to 10(27) photons s(-1) mrad(-2) mm(-2) per 0.1% bandwidth at an average photon energy of 20 MeV, is second only to X-ray free electron lasers, while the photon energy is 3 orders of magnitude higher than the latter. In addition, the gamma ray yield efficiency approaches 10%-that is, 5 orders of magnitude higher than the Compton scattering based on laser wakefield accelerators. Such high-energy, ultrabright, femtosecond-duration gamma rays may find applications in nuclear photonics, radiotherapy, and laboratory astrophysics.
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