Towards a novel laser-driven method of exotic nuclei extraction-acceleration for fundamental physics and technology
Abstract
The measurement of properties of exotic nuclei, essential for fundamental nuclear physics, now confronts a formidable challenge for contemporary radiofrequency accelerator technology. A promising option can be found in the combination of state-of-the-art high-intensity short pulse laser system and nuclear measurement techniques. We propose a novel Laser-driven Exotic Nuclei extraction-acceleration method (LENex): a femtosecond petawatt laser, irradiating a target bombarded by an external ion beam, extracts from the target and accelerates to few GeV highly-charged nuclear reaction products. Here a proof-of-principle experiment of LENex is presented: a few hundred-terawatt laser focused onto an aluminum foil, with a small amount of iron simulating nuclear reaction products, extracts almost fully stripped iron nuclei and accelerate them up to 0.9 GeV. Our experiments and numerical simulations show that short-lived, heavy exotic nuclei, with a much larger charge-to-mass ratio than in conventional technology, can be obtained in the form of an energetic, low-emittance, high-current beam.
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@article{arxiv.1402.5729,
title = {Towards a novel laser-driven method of exotic nuclei extraction-acceleration for fundamental physics and technology},
author = {Mamiko Nishiuchi and Hironao Sakaki and Katsuhisa Nishio and Riccard Orlandi and Hiroyuki Sako and Tatiana. A. Pikuz and Anatory Ya. Faenov and Timur Zh. Esirkepov and Alexander S. Pirozhkov and Kenya Matsukawa and Akito Sagisaka and Koichi Ogura and Masato Kanasaki and Hiromitsu Kiriyama and Yuji Fukuda and Hiroyuki Koura and Masaki Kando and Tomoya Yamauchi and Yukinobu Watanabe and Sergei V. Bulanov and Kiminori Kondo and Kenichi Imai and Shoji Nagamiya},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.5729},
year = {2014}
}
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