English

Bright gamma-rays from betatron resonance acceleration in near critical density plasma

Accelerator Physics 2013-10-24 v1 Plasma Physics

Abstract

We show that electron betatron resonance acceleration by an ultra-intense ultra-short laser pulse in a near critical density plasma works as a high-brightness gamma-ray source. Compared with laser plasma X-ray sources in under-dense plasma, near critical density plasma provides three benefits for electron radiation: more radiation electrons, larger transverse amplitude, and higher betatron oscillation frequency. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that, by using a 7.4J laser pulse, 8.3mJ radiation with critical photon energy 1MeV is emitted. The critical photon energy EcE_c increases with the incident laser energy %faster than a linear relation. WIW_I as EcWI1.5E_c \propto W_I^{1.5}, and the corresponding photon number is proportional to WIW_I. A simple analytical synchrotron-like radiation model is built, which can explain the simulation results.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1310.6164,
  title  = {Bright gamma-rays from betatron resonance acceleration in near critical density plasma},
  author = {B. Liu and H. Y. Wang and D. Wu and J. Liu and C. E. Chen and X. Q. Yan and X. T. He},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1310.6164},
  year   = {2013}
}