Cooperative effects in nuclear excitation with coherent x-ray light

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates how coherent x-ray light interacts with nuclei, revealing that collective effects in solid targets can significantly enhance nuclear excitation, advancing nuclear quantum optics.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of nuclear width broadening due to collective effects, showing potential for large enhancement in nuclear excitation using coherent x-ray light.

Findings

Cooperative effects can increase nuclear excitation by nearly two orders of magnitude.

Updated estimates suggest significant improvements in nuclear excitation and signal detection.

Solid target collective effects are promising for future nuclear quantum optics applications.

Abstract

The interaction between super-intense coherent x-ray light and nuclei is studied theoretically. One of the main difficulties with driving nuclear transitions arises from the very narrow nuclear excited state widths which limit the coupling between laser and nuclei. In the context of direct laser-nucleus interaction, we consider the nuclear width broadening that occurs when in solid targets, the excitation caused by a single photon is shared by a large number of nuclei, forming a collective excited state. Our results show that for certain isotopes, cooperative effects may lead to an enhancement of the nuclear excited state population by almost two orders of magnitude. Additionally, an update of previous estimates for nuclear excited state population and signal photons taking into account the experimental advances of the x-ray coherent light sources is given. The presented values are an improvement by orders of magnitude and are encouraging for the future prospects of nuclear quantum optics.