Bright γ rays source and nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pairs in the collision of high density particle beams

Abstract

The collision of ultrashort high-density e- or e- and e+ beams at 10s of GeV, to be available at the FACET II and in laser wakefield accelerator experiments, can produce highly collimated γ rays (few GeVs) with peak brilliance of 1027 ph/s mm2 mrad20.1%BW and up to 105 nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pairs. We provide analytical estimates of the photon source properties and of the yield of secondary pairs, finding excellent agreement with full-scale 3D self-consistent particle-in-cell simulations that include quantum electrodynamics effects. Our results show that beam-beam collisions can be exploited as secondary sources of γ rays and provide an alternative to beam-laser setups to probe quantum electrodynamics effects at the Schwinger limit.