Polarized Ultrashort Brilliant Multi-GeV <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>γ</mml:mi></mml:math> Rays via Single-Shot Laser-Electron Interaction
Yan-Fei Li, Rashid Shaisultanov, Yue-Yue Chen, Feng Wan, Karen Z. Hatsagortsyan, Christoph H. Keitel, Jian-Xing Li
Abstract
Generation of circularly polarized (CP) and linearly polarized (LP) γ rays via the single-shot interaction of an ultraintense laser pulse with a spin-polarized counterpropagating ultrarelativistic electron beam has been investigated in nonlinear Compton scattering in the quantum radiation-dominated regime. For the process simulation, a Monte Carlo method is developed which employs the electron-spin-resolved probabilities for polarized photon emissions. We show efficient ways for the transfer of the electron polarization to the high-energy photon polarization. In particular, multi-GeV CP (LP) γ rays with polarization of up to about 95% can be generated by a longitudinally (transversely) spin-polarized electron beam, with a photon flux meeting the requirements of recent proposals for the vacuum birefringence measurement in ultrastrong laser fields. Such high-energy, high-brilliance, high-polarization γ rays are also beneficial for other applications in high-energy physics, and laboratory astrophysics.