Experimental evidence of radiation reaction in the collision of a high-intensity laser pulse with a laser-wakefield accelerated electron beam
File(s)PhysRevX.8.011020.pdf (866.99 KB)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
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 (ϵ>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 ϵcrit>30 MeV.
Date Issued
2018-01-01
Date Acceptance
2018-01-01
Citation
Physical Review X, 2018, 8
ISSN
2160-3308
Publisher
American Physical Society
Journal / Book Title
Physical Review X
Volume
8
Copyright Statement
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to
the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation,
and DOI.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to
the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation,
and DOI.
License URL
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Grant Number
EP/M018555/1
EP/H00601X/1
ST/P000835/1
ST/P002021/1
Subjects
physics.plasm-ph
physics.plasm-ph
hep-ph
Notes
10 pages, 7 figures
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 011020
Date Publish Online
2018-02-07