Polarized Positron Beams via Intense Two-Color Laser Pulses.

Abstract

The generation of ultrarelativistic polarized positrons during the interaction of an ultrarelativistic electron beam with a counterpropagating two-color petawatt laser pulse is investigated theoretically. Our MonteCarlo simulation, based on a semiclassical model, incorporates photon emissions and pair productions, using spin-resolved quantum probabilities in the local constant field approximation, and describes the polarization of electrons and positrons for the pair production and photon emission processes, as well as the classical spin precession in between. The main reason for the polarization is shown to be the spin asymmetry of the pair production process in strong external fields, combined with the asymmetry of the two-color laser field. Employing a feasible scenario, we show that highly polarized positron beams, with a polarization degree of ζ≈60%, can be produced in a femtosecond timescale, with a small angular divergence, ∼74 mrad, and high density, ∼10^{14} cm^{-3}. The laser-driven polarized positron source raises hope for providing an alternative for high-energy physics studies.