https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2009-00172-y
High-power laser-driven source of ultra-short X-ray and gamma-ray pulses
1
Advanced Photon Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 8-1 Umemidai, Kizugawa, Kyoto, 619-0215, Japan
2
Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, 2-6-1 Nagasaka, Yokosuka-shi, Kanagawa-Ken, 240-0196, Japan
Corresponding author: a Timur.Esirkepov@jaea.go.jp
Received:
21
November
2008
Revised:
6
March
2009
Published online:
16
June
2009
A novel ultra-bright high-intensity source of X-ray and gamma radiation is suggested. It is based on the double Doppler effect, where a relativistic flying mirror reflects a counter-propagating electromagnetic radiation causing its frequency multiplication and intensification, and on the inverse double Doppler effect, where the mirror acquires energy from an ultra-intense co-propagating electromagnetic wave. The role of the flying mirror is played by a high-density thin plasma slab accelerating in the radiation pressure dominant regime. Frequencies of high harmonics generated at the flying mirror by a relativistically strong counter-propagating radiation udergo multiplication with the same factor as the fundamental frequency of the reflected radiation, approximately equal to the quadruple of the square of the mirror Lorentz factor.
PACS: 52.38.Ph – X-ray, gamma-ray and particle generation / 52.59.Ye – Plasma devices for generation of coherent radiation / 52.38.-r – Laser-plasma interactions / 52.35.Mw – Nonlinear phenomena: waves, wave propagation, and other interactions
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2009
