Abstract
Charged particles accelerated by electromagnetic fields emit radiation, which must, by the conservation of momentum, exert a recoil on the emitting particle. The force of this recoil, known as radiation reaction, strongly affects the dynamics of ultrarelativistic electrons in intense electromagnetic fields. Such environments are found astrophysically, e.g. in neutron star magnetospheres, and will be created in laser–matter experiments in the next generation of high-intensity laser facilities. In many of these scenarios, the energy of an individual photon of the radiation can be comparable to the energy of the emitting particle, which necessitates modelling not only of radiation reaction, but quantum radiation reaction. The worldwide development of multi-petawatt laser systems in large-scale facilities, and the expectation that they will create focussed electromagnetic fields with unprecedented intensities > 10^{23},mathrm {W}text {cm}^{-2}, has motivated renewed interest in these effects. In this paper I review theoretical and experimental progress towards understanding radiation reaction, and quantum effects on the same, in high-intensity laser fields that are probed with ultrarelativistic electron beams. In particular, we will discuss how analytical and numerical methods give insight into new kinds of radiation–reaction-induced dynamics, as well as how the same physics can be explored in experiments at currently existing laser facilities.
Highlights
It is a well-established experimental fact that charged particles, accelerating under the action of externally imposed electromagnetic fields, emit radiation (Liénard 1898; Wiechert 1900)
We can ask: as radiation carries energy and momentum, how do we account for the recoil it must exert on the particle? Equivalently, how do we determine the trajectory when one electromagnetic force acting on the particle is imposed externally and the other arises from the particle itself? That this remains an active and interesting area of research is a testament to the challenges in measuring radiation reaction effects experimentally (Samarin et al 2017), and to the difficulties of the theory itself (Di Piazza et al 2012; Burton and Noble 2014)
The ‘correct’ formulation of radiation reaction within classical electrodynamics has not yet been absolutely established, nor has the complete corresponding theory in quantum electrodynamics. While these points are undoubtedly of fundamental interest, it is important to note that radiation reaction and quantum effects will be unavoidable in experiments with high-intensity lasers and these questions are of immense practical interest as well
Summary
Reviews of Modern Plasma Physics (2020) 4:5 the magnitude of the acceleration as well as the shape of the particle trajectory. While these points are undoubtedly of fundamental interest, it is important to note that radiation reaction and quantum effects will be unavoidable in experiments with high-intensity lasers and these questions are of immense practical interest as well This is motivated by the fast-paced development of large-scale, multipetawatt laser facilities (Danson et al 2019): today’s facilities reach focussed intensities of order 1022 Wcm−2 (Bahk et al 2004; Sung et al 2017; Kiriyama et al 2018), and those upcoming, such as Apollon (Papadopoulos et al 2016), ELI-Beamlines (Weber et al 2017) and Nuclear Physics (Gales et al 2018), aim to reach more than 1023 Wcm−2 , with the added capability of providing multiple laser pulses to the same target chamber. That ′ is constant tells us that there is a phase shift
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