Radiation reaction induced spiral attractors in ultra-intense colliding laser beams

TL;DR

This paper investigates how radiation reaction influences electron behavior in ultra-intense colliding laser beams, revealing new attractor dynamics and potential experimental observables.

Contribution

It introduces a linear stability analysis of fixed points in electron phase-space considering radiation reaction, a novel approach in this context.

Findings

Center nodes become attractors with radiation reaction.

Electron phase-space densities grow exponentially near attractors.

Particle-in-cell simulations confirm theoretical predictions.

Abstract

The radiation reaction effects on electron dynamics in counter-propagating circularly polarized laser beams are investigated through the linearization theorem and the results are in great agreement with numeric solutions. For the first time, the properties of fixed points in electron phase-space were analyzed with linear stability theory, showing that center nodes will become attractors if the classical radiation reaction is considered. Electron dynamics are significantly affected by the properties of the fixed points and the electron phase-space densities are found to be increasing exponentially near the attractors. The density growth rates are derived theoretically and further verified by particle-in-cell simulations, which can be detected in experiments to explore the effects of radiation reaction qualitatively. The attractor can also facilitate to realize a series of nanometer-scaled flying electron slices via adjusting the colliding laser frequencies.