Scaling the Yield of Laser-Driven Electron-Positron Jets to Laboratory Astrophysical Applications
Abstract
We report new experimental results obtained on three different laser facilities that show directed laser-driven relativistic electron-positron jets with up to 30 times larger yields than previously obtained and a quadratic (~ E^2) dependence of the positron yield on the laser energy. This favorable scaling stems from a combination of higher energy electrons due to increased laser intensity and the recirculation of MeV electrons in the mm-thick target. Based on this scaling, first principles simulations predict the possibility of using such electron-positron jets, produced at upcoming high-energy laser facilities, to probe the physics of relativistic collisionless shocks in the laboratory.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1504.07148,
title = {Scaling the Yield of Laser-Driven Electron-Positron Jets to Laboratory Astrophysical Applications},
author = {Hui Chen and F. Fiuza and A. Link and A. Hazi and M. Hill and D. Hoarty and S. James and S. Kerr and D. D. Meyerhofer and J. Myatt and J. Park and Y. Sentoku and G. J. Williams},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.07148},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
10 pages, 3 figures. Accepted to be published on Physical Review Letters on April 23, 2015