Investigation of QED Effects With Varying Z in Thin Foil Targets

• Published in: IEEE transactions on plasma science 2021-02, Vol.49 (2), p.573-577
• Main Authors: Chintalwad, S., Krishnamurthy, S., Ramakrishna, B., Morris, S., Ridgers, C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aluminum; Copper; Electron energy; Electron-positron pair; Foils; Gold; Investigations; Laser theory; laser-plasma interaction; Lasers; Linear polarization; Pair production; Particle in cell technique; particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation; Photonics; Plasma interactions; Positrons; Production; Quantum cascade lasers; Quantum electrodynamics; quantum electrodynamics (QED) effects
• ISSN: 0093-3813; 1939-9375
• DOI: 10.1109/TPS.2020.3026781

Quantum electrodynamics (QED) effects in intense laser-plasma interaction were investigated using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, specifically the generation of electron-positron pairs. Linearly polarized intense laser pulses were used to irradiate a thin foil (1- \mu \text{m} ) with an intensity of 4\times 10^{23} W cm −2 . A scan of targets with varying Z (Al, Cu, and Au) is investigated to determine the effect of target Z /density on electron-positron pair production. The total number of pairs created for Al and Cu targets is 10 14 and 10 13 , respectively. In the case of Au, we did not observe any pair production to occur. We have also calculated the variation in electron energy in these targets. The results indicate that target Z plays a very important role with the laser interaction in the pair production process, which will be explained in this article.