https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2009-00080-2
Vision of a fully laser-driven nγ−mγ collider
1
Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-University München, 85748 Garching, Germany
2
Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, 85748 Garching, Germany
3
Los Alamos National Laboratories, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA
Corresponding author: a dieter.habs@physik.uni-muenchen.de
Received:
24
November
2008
Published online:
13
March
2009
The use is suggested of a laser-accelerated dense electron sheet with
an energy of () as a relativistic mirror to reflect coherently a second
laser with photon energy ħω, generating by the Doppler boost
high-energy γ photons with
and
short duration [A. Einstein, Annalen der Physik 17, 891 (1905); D. Habs et al., Appl. Phys. B 93, 349 (2008)]. Two of these counter-propagating
γ beams are focused by the parabolically shaped electron sheets into the
interaction region with small, close to diffraction-limited, spot size.
Comparing the new nγ-mγ collider with former proposed
γγ collider schemes we achieve the conversion of many
photon-pairs in a small space-time volume to matter-antimatter particles,
while in the other discussed setups only two isolated, much more
high-energetic photons will be converted, reaching in the
new approach much higher energy densities and temperatures.
With a γ-field strength somewhat below the Schwinger limit we can
reach this complete conversion of the γ bunch energy into
e+e- or quark-antiquark
-plasmas.
For a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) [A. Einstein, Physikalisch-mathematische Klasse (Berlin) 22, 261 (1924); A. Einstein, Physikalisch-mathematische Klasse (Berlin) 22, 3 (1925); A. Griffin, D.W. Snoke, S. Stringari, Bose-Einstein Condensation (Cambridge University Press, 1995)] final state or for the Cooper pair ground state at higher densities [A.J. Leggett, Quantum Liquids, Oxford Graduate Texts (Oxford University Press, 2006)] the strong induced transition
into this coherent state is of special interest for single-cycle γ
pulses. Due to annihilation these cold coherent states are very
short-lived. For γ beams with photon energies
of 1–10 keV the rather cold e+e--plasma or
e+e--BEC expands to a cold dense aggregate of positronium (Ps)
atoms, where the production of Ps molecules is discussed.
For photon energies of 1–10 MeV we discuss the production of
a cold induced π0-BEC followed by the formation of molecules.
For the direct population of higher
densities we can study
condensates of color-neutral mesons with enhanced population.
For a γγ collider with several-cycle laser pulses
the following cycles heat up the fermion-antifermion
system to a certain temperature.
Thus we can reach high energy densities and temperatures of an e+e-γ
plasma, where the production of hadrons in general or the quark-gluon
phase transition can be observed. Within the long-term goal of very
high photon energies of about 1 GeV in the nγ-mγ-collider,
even the electro-weak phase transition or SUSY phase transition
could be reached.
PACS: 42.55.Vc – X- and gamma-ray lasers / 29.27.-a – Beams in particle accelerators / 41.75.Jv – Laser-driven acceleration / 41.75.Ht – Relativistic electron and positron beams
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2009