Towards Bright Gamma-Ray Flash Generation From Tailored Target Irradiated by Multi-Petawatt Laser

TL;DR

This paper investigates how tailored targets irradiated by multi-petawatt lasers can generate bright gamma-ray flashes, emphasizing the role of background fields and preplasma in enhancing gamma-photon production.

Contribution

It introduces a combined simulation approach to study gamma-photon generation, highlighting the positive impact of background fields on efficiency and pair production.

Findings

Background fields enhance laser-target coupling.

Preplasma formation influences gamma-ray emission.

Efficient gamma-ray source potential for applications.

Abstract

One of the remarkable phenomena in the laser-matter interaction is the extremely efficient energy transfer to $\gamma$-photons, that appears as a collimated $\gamma$-ray beam. For interactions of realistic laser pulses with matter, existence of a background field plays a crucial role, since it hits the target prior to the main pulse arrival, leading to a cloud of preplasma and drilling a narrow channel inside the target. These effects significantly alter the process of $\gamma$-photon generation. Here, we study this process by importing the outcome of magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the target interaction into particle-in-cell simulations for describing the $\gamma$-photon generation. It is seen that the background field effect plays an important positive role, enhancing the efficiency of laser pulse coupling with the target, and generating high energy electron-positron pairs. It is expected that such a $\gamma$-photon source will be actively used in various applications in nuclear photonics, material science and astrophysical processes modeling.