Laser plasma accelerated ultra-intense electron beam for efficiently exciting nuclear isomers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel laser plasma wakefield method to produce ultra-intense electron beams that efficiently excite nuclear isomers, enabling advanced nuclear physics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new injection technique using nitrogen inner shell electrons, achieving unprecedented electron beam intensity and efficiency in nuclear isomer excitation.

Findings

Produced 20 nC, tens of MeV electron beams with high collimation.

Achieved nuclear isomer excitation at peak efficiency of 1.76×10^{15} particles/sec.

Enabled excitation of isotopes with picosecond lifetimes.

Abstract

Utilizing laser plasma wakefield to accelerate ultra-high charge electron beam is critical for many pioneering applications, for example to efficiently produce nuclear isomers with short lifetimes which may be widely used. However, because of the beam loading effect, electron charge in a single plasma bubble is limited in level of hundreds picocoulomb. Here, we experimentally present that a hundred kilo-ampere, twenty nanocoulomb, tens of MeV collimated electron beam is produced from a chain of wakefield acceleration, via a tightly focused intense laser pulse transversely matched in dense plasma. This ultra-intense electron beam ascribes to a novel efficient injection that the nitrogen atom inner shell electrons are ionized and continuously injected into multiple plasma bubbles. This intense electron beam has been utilized to exciting nuclear isomers with an ultra-high peak efficiency of $1.76\times10^{15}$ particles/s via photonuclear reactions. This efficient production method of isomers can be widely used for pumping isotopes with excited state lifetimes down to picosecond, which is benefit for deep understanding nuclear transition mechanisms and stimulating gamma-ray lasers.