110 research outputs found
Signatures of High-Intensity Compton Scattering
We review known and discuss new signatures of high-intensity Compton
scattering assuming a scenario where a high-power laser is brought into
collision with an electron beam. At high intensities one expects to see a
substantial red-shift of the usual kinematic Compton edge of the photon
spectrum caused by the large, intensity dependent, effective mass of the
electrons within the laser beam. Emission rates acquire their global maximum at
this edge while neighbouring smaller peaks signal higher harmonics. In
addition, we find that the notion of the centre-of-mass frame for a given
harmonic becomes intensity dependent. Tuning the intensity then effectively
amounts to changing the frame of reference, going continuously from inverse to
ordinary Compton scattering with the centre-of-mass kinematics defining the
transition point between the two.Comment: 25 pages, 16 .eps figure
Non-perturbative vacuum-polarization effects in proton-laser collisions
In the collision of a high-energy proton beam and a strong laser field,
merging of the laser photons can occur due to the polarization of vacuum. The
probability of photon merging is calculated by accounting exactly for the laser
field and presents a highly non-perturbative dependence on the laser intensity
and frequency. It is shown that the non-perturbative vacuum-polarization
effects can be experimentally measured by combining the next-generation of
table-top petawatt lasers with presently available proton accelerators.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
The intensity dependent mass shift: existence, universality and detection
The electron mass shift in a laser field has long remained an elusive
concept. We show that the mass shift can exist in pulses but that it is neither
unique nor universal: it can be reduced by pulse shaping. We show also that the
detection of mass shift effects in laser-particle scattering experiments is
feasible with current technology, even allowing for the transverse structure of
realistic beams.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. V2: references added, introduction expande
Pairs Emission in a Uniform Background Field: an Algebraic Approach
A fully algebraic general approach is developed to treat the pairs emission
and absorption in the presence of some uniform external background field. In
particular, it is shown that the pairs production and annihilation operators,
together with the pairs number operator, do actually fulfill the SU(2)
functional Lie algebra. As an example of application, the celebrated Schwinger
formula is consistently and nicely recovered, within this novel approach, for a
Dirac spinor field in the presence of a constant and homogeneous electric field
in four spacetime dimensions.Comment: 26 pages, no figure
Limitations on the attainable intensity of high power lasers
It is shown that even a single pair created by a super strong laser
field in vacuum would cause development of an avalanche-like QED cascade which
rapidly depletes the incoming laser pulse. This confirms the old N. Bohr
conjecture that the electric field of the critical QED strength
could never be created.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Testing numerical implementations of strong-field electrodynamics
We test current numerical implementations of laser-matter interactions by
comparison with exact analytical results. Focussing on photon emission
processes, it is found that the numerics accurately reproduce analytical
emission spectra in all considered regimes, except for the harmonic structures
often singled out as the most significant high intensity/multi-photon effects.
We find that this discrepancy originates in the use of the locally constant
field approximation.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure
Breit-Wheeler Process in Intense Short Laser Pulses
Energy-angular distributions of electron-positron pair creation in collisions
of a laser beam and a nonlaser photon are calculated using the -matrix
formalism. The laser field is modeled as a finite pulse, similar to the
formulation introduced in our recent paper in the context of Compton scattering
[Phys. Rev. A {\bf 85}, 062102 (2012)]. The nonperturbative regime of pair
creation is considered here. The energy spectra of created particles are
compared with the corresponding spectra obtained using the modulated plane wave
approximation for the driving laser field. A very good agreement in these two
cases is observed, provided that the laser pulse is sufficiently long. For
short pulse durations, this agreement breaks down. The sensitivity of pair
production to the polarization of a driving pulse is also investigated. We show
that in the nonperturbative regime, the pair creation yields depend on the
polarization of the pulse, reaching their maximal values for the linear
polarization. Therefore, we focus on this case. Specifically, we analyze the
dependence of pair creation on the relative configuration of linear
polarizations of the laser pulse and the nonlaser photon. Lastly, we
investigate the carrier-envelope phase effect on angular distributions of
created particles, suggesting the possibility of phase control in relation to
the pair creation processes.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure
QED cascades induced by circularly polarized laser fields
The results of Monte-Carlo simulations of electron-positron-photon cascades
initiated by slow electrons in circularly polarized fields of ultra-high
strength are presented and discussed. Our results confirm previous qualitative
estimations [A.M. Fedotov, et al., PRL 105, 080402 (2010)] of the formation of
cascades. This sort of cascades has revealed the new property of the
restoration of energy and dynamical quantum parameter due to the acceleration
of electrons and positrons by the field and may become a dominating feature of
laser-matter interactions at ultra-high intensities. Our approach incorporates
radiation friction acting on individual electrons and positrons.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure
Theory of radiative electron polarization in strong laser fields
Radiative polarization of electrons and positrons through the Sokolov-Ternov effect is important for applications in high-energy physics. Radiative spin polarization is a manifestation of quantum radiation reaction affecting the spin dynamics of electrons. We recently proposed that an analog of the Sokolov-Ternov effect could occur in the strong electromagnetic fields of ultra-high-intensity lasers, which would result in a buildup of spin polarization in femtoseconds. In this paper, we develop a density matrix formalism for describing beam polarization in strong electromagnetic fields. We start by using the density matrix formalism to study spin flips in nonlinear Compton scattering and its dependence on the initial polarization state of the electrons. Numerical calculations show a radial polarization of the scattered electron beam in a circularly polarized laser, and we find azimuthal asymmetries in the polarization patterns for ultrashort laser pulses. A degree of polarization approaching 9% is achieved after emitting just a single photon. We develop the theory by deriving a local constant crossed-field approximation (LCFA) for the polarization density matrix, which is a generalization of the well-known LCFA scattering rates. We find spin-dependent expressions that may be included in electromagnetic charged-particle simulation codes, such as particle-in-cell plasma simulation codes, using Monte Carlo modules. In particular, these expressions include the spin-flip rates for arbitrary initial polarization of the electrons. The validity of the LCFA is confirmed by explicit comparison with an exact QED calculation of electron polarization in an ultrashort laser pulse
Quantum simulator for the Schwinger effect with atoms in bi-chromatic optical lattices
Ultra-cold atoms in specifically designed optical lattices can be used to
mimic the many-particle Hamiltonian describing electrons and positrons in an
external electric field. This facilitates the experimental simulation of (so
far unobserved) fundamental quantum phenomena such as the Schwinger effect,
i.e., spontaneous electron-positron pair creation out of the vacuum by a strong
electric field.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; minor corrections and improvements in text and in
figures; references adde
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