Magnetically collimated relativistic charge-neutral electron–positron beams from high-power lasers

Abstract

We report the observation of charge-neutral MeV electron–positron beams from magnetically collimated laser-driven pair-production experiments. Relativistic pairs of electrons were generated from laser–solid interactions in an external 13-T mirror field. The pairs were subsequently confined, deflected, or collimated depending on the particle energy and field strength and measured by a magnetic particle spectrometer. Equal quantities of positrons and electrons were measured in the collimated beams with an energy around 13 MeV along the magnetic mirror axis.