High brilliance $\gamma$-ray generation from the laser interaction in a carbon plasma channel

Abstract

The generation of collimated, high brilliance $\gamma$-ray beams from a structured plasma channel target is studied by means of 2D PIC simulations. Simulation results reveal an optimum laser pulse pulse duration of $20\,\text{fs}$, for generating $\gamma$-photon beams of brilliances up to $10^{20}\,\text{s}^{-1}\text{mm}^{-1}\text{mrad}^{-2}\,(0.1\,\%\text{BW})^{-1}$ and photon energies well above $200$ MeV in the interaction of an ultra-intense laser (incident laser power $ P_L \geq 5$ PW) with a high-Z carbon structured plasma target. These results are aimed at employing the upcoming laser facilities with multi-petawatt (PW) laser powers to study the laser-driven nonlinear quantum electrodynamics processes in an all-optical laboratory setup.