Generation of energetic electron-positron pairs using multi-petawatt (PW) lasers has recently attracted increasing interest. However, some previous laser-driven positron beams have severe limitations in terms of energy spread, beam duration, density, and collimation. Here we propose a scheme for the generation of dense ultra-short quasi-monoenergetic positron bunches by colliding a twisted laser pulse with a Gaussian laser pulse. In this scheme, abundant γ-photons are first generated via nonlinear Compton scattering and positrons are subsequently generated during the head-on collision of γ-photons with the Gaussian laser pulse. Due to the unique structure of the twisted laser pulse, the positrons are confined by the radial electric fields and experience phase-locked-acceleration by the longitudinal electric field. Three-dimensional simulations demonstrate the generation of dense sub-femtosecond quasi-monoenergetic GeV positron bunches with tens of picocoulomb (pC) charge and extremely high brilliance above 1014 s−1 mm−2 mrad−2 eV−1, making them promising for applications in laboratory physics and high energy physics.
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.
CITATION STYLE
Zhao, J., Hu, Y. T., Lu, Y., Zhang, H., Hu, L. X., Zhu, X. L., … Yu, T. P. (2022). All-optical quasi-monoenergetic GeV positron bunch generation by twisted laser fields. Communications Physics, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-021-00797-9