Narrow bandwidth gamma comb from nonlinear Compton scattering using the polarization gating technique

TL;DR

This paper presents a method using polarization gating to generate narrow bandwidth gamma-ray combs via nonlinear Compton scattering, effectively reducing spectral broadening caused by ponderomotive effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of polarization gating to produce narrow gamma-ray combs, avoiding ponderomotive broadening in nonlinear Compton scattering.

Findings

Successful generation of narrow gamma-ray combs near pulse peak

Reduction of spectral broadening in harmonic emission

Potential for brighter gamma-ray sources

Abstract

Nonlinear Compton scattering is a promising source of bright gamma-rays. Using readily available intense laser pulses to scatter off the energetic electrons on the one hand allows to significantly increase the total photon yield, but on the other hand leads to a dramatic spectral broadening of fundamental emission line as well as its harmonics due to the laser pulse shape induced ponderomotive effects. In this paper we propose to avoid ponderomotive broadening in harmonics by using the polarization gating technique - a well-known method to construct a laser pulse with temporally varying polarization. We show that by restricting harmonic emission only to the region near the peak of the pulse, where the polarization is linear, it is possible to generate a bright narrow bandwidth comb in the gamma region.