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Signatures of quantum effects on radiation reaction in laser–electron-beam collisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2017

C. P. Ridgers*
Affiliation:
York Plasma Institute, Department of Physics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
T. G. Blackburn
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-41296 Gothenburg, Sweden
D. Del Sorbo
Affiliation:
York Plasma Institute, Department of Physics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
L. E. Bradley
Affiliation:
York Plasma Institute, Department of Physics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
C. Slade-Lowther
Affiliation:
York Plasma Institute, Department of Physics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
C. D. Baird
Affiliation:
York Plasma Institute, Department of Physics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
S. P. D. Mangles
Affiliation:
The John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, South Kensington, London  SW7 2BZ, UK
P. McKenna
Affiliation:
Department of Physics SUPA, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK
M. Marklund
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-41296 Gothenburg, Sweden
C. D. Murphy
Affiliation:
York Plasma Institute, Department of Physics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
A. G. R. Thomas
Affiliation:
Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2099, USA Cockcroft Institute, Daresbury Laboratory, Warrington WA4 4AD, UK Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YB, UK
*
Email address for correspondence: christopher.ridgers@york.ac.uk
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Abstract

Two signatures of quantum effects on radiation reaction in the collision of a ${\sim}$ GeV electron beam with a high intensity ( ${>}3\times 10^{20}~\text{W}~\text{cm}^{-2}$ ) laser pulse have been considered. We show that the decrease in the average energy of the electron beam may be used to measure the Gaunt factor $g$ for synchrotron emission. We derive an equation for the evolution of the variance in the energy of the electron beam in the quantum regime, i.e. quantum efficiency parameter $\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}\not \ll 1$ . We show that the evolution of the variance may be used as a direct measure of the quantum stochasticity of the radiation reaction and determine the parameter regime where this is observable. For example, stochastic emission results in a 25 % increase in the standard deviation of the energy spectrum of a GeV electron beam, 1 fs after it collides with a laser pulse of intensity $10^{21}~\text{W}~\text{cm}^{-2}$ . This effect should therefore be measurable using current high-intensity laser systems.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017
Figure 0

Figure 1. $g_{2}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D702})$ (solid line) and the fit used here (dashed line).

Figure 1

Figure 2. Electron energy distribution, 10.5 fs after collision of the electron bunch with the laser pulse, compared to initial distribution using the stochastic, modified classical and classical emission operators.

Figure 2

Figure 3. (a) Mean Lorentz factor versus time using the various emission models from simulation and as predicted by (3.2) and (3.3). (b) Standard deviation in Lorentz factor versus time from simulation and as predicted by (3.4) and (3.7).

Figure 3

Figure 4. $\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}$ as a function of: laser intensity and average Lorentz factor of the electron bunch (a); laser intensity and width of the electron energy distribution (b). The solid white lines show $\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}=2$ and the dashed white lines show the prediction of where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}=2$ from (4.2).

Figure 4

Figure 5. Temporal evolution of the change in standard deviation in the electron energy distribution in simulations 1–4.

Figure 5

Table 1. Simulation parameters used to investigate the dominance of $T_{+}$ over $T_{-}$ and vice versa