Acceleration with Self-Injection for an All-Optical Radiation Source at LNF

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel compact gamma-ray source leveraging laser-driven electron acceleration and Thomson/Compton scattering, achieving significantly higher spectral density and serving as a platform for fundamental electrodynamics studies.

Contribution

It introduces a new gamma-ray source concept using self-injection electron acceleration and counter-propagating laser pulses, with preliminary experimental results.

Findings

Achieved high spectral density gamma-ray emission.

Demonstrated self-injection electron acceleration with the FLAME laser.

Provided insights into fundamental electrodynamics through the experimental setup.

Abstract

We discuss a new compact gamma-ray source aiming at high spectral density, up to two orders of magnitude higher than currently available bremsstrahlung sources, and conceptually similar to Compton Sources based on conventional linear accelerators. This new source exploits electron bunches from laser-driven electron acceleration in the so-called self-injection scheme and uses a counter-propagating laser pulse to obtain X and gamma-ray emission via Thomson/Compton scattering. The proposed experimental configuration inherently provides a unique test-bed for studies of fundamental open issues of electrodynamics. In view of this, a preliminary discussion of recent results on self-injection with the FLAME laser is also given.