Experimental Evidence of Radiation Reaction in the Collision of a High-Intensity Laser Pulse with a Laser-Wakefield Accelerated Electron Beam
Journal article, 2018
The dynamics of energetic particles in strong electromagnetic fields can be heavily influenced by the energy loss arising from the emission of radiation during acceleration, known as radiation reaction. When interacting with a high-energy electron beam, today's lasers are sufficiently intense to explore the transition between the classical and quantum radiation reaction regimes. We present evidence of radiation reaction in the collision of an ultrarelativistic electron beam generated by laser-wakefield acceleration (μ 500 MeV) with an intense laser pulse (a0 > 10). We measure an energy loss in the postcollision electron spectrum that is correlated with the detected signal of hard photons (γ rays), consistent with a quantum description of radiation reaction. The generated γ rays have the highest energies yet reported from an all-optical inverse Compton scattering scheme, with critical energy > 30 MeV.
Author
J. M. Cole
Imperial College London
K. T. Behm
University of Michigan
E. Gerstmayr
Imperial College London
Tom Blackburn
Chalmers, Physics, Theoretical Physics
J. C. Wood
Imperial College London
C. D. Baird
University of York
M. J. Duff
University of Strathclyde
Christopher Harvey
Chalmers, Physics, Theoretical Physics
Antony Ilderton
Chalmers, Physics, Theoretical Physics
University of Plymouth
A. S. Joglekar
University of Michigan
University of California
K. Krushelnick
University of Michigan
S. Kuschel
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Mattias Marklund
Chalmers, Physics, Theoretical Physics
P. McKenna
University of Strathclyde
C. D. Murphy
University of York
K. Poder
Imperial College London
C. P. Ridgers
University of York
G. M. Samarin
Queen's University Belfast
G. Sarri
Queen's University Belfast
D. R. Symes
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
A. G.R. Thomas
Lancaster University
University of Michigan
J. Warwick
Queen's University Belfast
M. Zepf
Queen's University Belfast
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Helmholtz
Z. Najmudin
Imperial College London
S. P. D. Mangles
Imperial College London
Physical Review X
21603308 (eISSN)
Vol. 8 1 011020Subject Categories
Accelerator Physics and Instrumentation
Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics
Other Physics Topics
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevX.8.011020