Generation of Collimated MeV γ-rays from Intense Poincaré Beam-Plasma Interaction

POSTER

Abstract

The production of a petawatt γ-ray beam is demonstrated using a novel configuration based on fully-structured light irradiating a dense plasma. We study how the relativistic pulse efficiently confines and accelerates plasma electrons, driving a quasi-static field that stimulates magneto-bremsstrahlung radiation. The emitted γ-rays are highly collimated and account for upwards of 20% of the incident field energy. The essential characteristics of the interaction are validated using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations.

*This work was supported by the US DOE Office of Science under Interagency Agreement number 89243018SSC000006 and the Directed Energy Society's Directed Energy Summer Internship program. Simulations were performed on the National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) center's Cori computing cluster.

Publication: [1] A. H. Younis, A. Davidson, B. Hafizi, and D. F. Gordon, "Diagnostic Techniques for Particle-in-Cell Simulations of Laser-produced Gamma-rays in the Strong-field QED Regime," in Proceedings of the Advanced Accelerator Concepts Seminar Series 2020, arXiv:2106.16227 [physics.plasm-ph].

[2] A. H. Younis et al., "Generation of Collimated MeV Gamma-rays from Intense Poincaré Beam-Plasma Interaction" (planned paper).

Presenters

  • Daniel Younis

    • University of Rochester

Authors

  • Daniel Younis

    • University of Rochester

  • Asher Davidson

    • United States Naval Research Laboratory

  • Bahman Hafizi

    • United States Naval Research Laboratory

  • Daniel F Gordon

    • United States Naval Research Laboratory