Hard Photon Emission Research Articles

Analytical solutions for quantum radiation reaction in high-intensity lasers

While the Landau-Lifshitz equation, which describes classical radiation reaction, can be solved exactly and analytically for a charged particle accelerated by a plane electromagnetic wave, no such solutions are available for quantum radiation reaction (the recoil arising from the successive, incoherent emission of hard photons). Yet upcoming experiments with ultrarelativistic electron beams and high-intensity lasers will explore the regime where both radiation-reaction and quantum effects are important. Here we present analytical solutions for the mean and variance of the energy distribution of an electron beam that collides with a pulsed plane electromagnetic wave, which are obtained by means of a perturbative expansion in the quantum parameter χ0. These solutions capture both the quantum reduction in the radiated power and the stochastic broadening, and are shown to be accurate across the range of experimentally relevant collision parameters, i.e., GeV-class electron beams and laser amplitudes a0≲200. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Abnormal absorption of extremely intense laser pulses in relativistically underdense plasmas

It is generally believed that relativistically underdense plasmas are transparent for intense laser radiation. However, particle-in-cell simulations reveal abnormal laser field absorption above the intensity threshold of about 3×1024 Wcm−2 for the wavelength of 1 μm. Above the threshold, the further increase in the laser intensity does not lead to an increase in the propagation distance. The simulations take into account emission of hard photons and subsequent pair photoproduction in the laser field. These effects lead to onset of a self-sustained quantum electromagnetic cascade and to formation of dense electron–positron (e+e−) plasma right inside the laser field. The plasma absorbs the laser field efficiently, which ensures the plasma opacity. The role of a weak longitudinal electron–ion electric field in the cascade growth is discussed.

Surface Degradation of Thin-Layer Al/MgF2 Mirrors under Exposure to Powerful VUV Radiation.

Thin-layer Al/MgF2 coatings are currently used for extraterrestrial far-UV astronomy as the primary and secondary mirrors of telescopes (such as "Spektr-UF"). Successful Hubble far-UV measurements have been performed thanks to MgF2 on Al mirror coatings. Damage of such thin-layer coatings has been previously studied under exposure to high-energy electrons/protons fluxes and in low Earth orbit environments. Meanwhile, there is an interest to test the stability of such mirrors under the impact of extreme radiation fluxes from pulsed plasma thrusters as a simulation of emergency onboard situations and other applications. In the present studies, the high current and compressed plasma jets were generated by a laboratory plasma thruster prototype and operated as effective emitters of high brightness (with an integral overall wavelength radiation flux of >1 MW/cm2) and broadband radiation. The spectrum rearrangement and hard-photon cut-off at energy above Ec were implemented by selection of a background gas in the discharge chamber. The discharges in air (Ec ≈ 6 eV), argon (Ec ≈ 15 eV) and neon (Ec ≈ 21 eV) were studied. X-ray diffraction and reflectometry, electron and atomic force microscopy, and IR and visible spectroscopy were used for coating characterization and estimation of degradation degree. In the case of the discharges in air with photon energies of E < 6 eV, only individual nanocracks were found and property changes were negligible. In the case of inert gases, the energy fraction was ≈50% in the VUV range. As found for inert background gases, an emission of such hard photons with energies higher than the MgF2 band gap energy of ≈10.8 eV caused a drastic light-induced ablation and degradation of the irradiated coatings. The upward trend of degradation with an increasing of the maximum photon energies was detected. The obtained data on the surface destruction are useful for the design of methods for coating stability tests and an understanding of the consequences of emergencies onboard space research stations.

Interplay of effects of neutron skins in coordinate space and proton skins in momentum space on emission of hard photons in heavy-ion collisions near the Fermi energy

Interplay of effects of neutron skins in coordinate space and proton skins in momentum space on emission of hard photons in heavy-ion collisions near the Fermi energy

Lepton pair production at NNLO in QED with EW effects

We present a fully differential calculation of lepton pair production, taking into account the dominant next-to-next-to-leading order QED corrections as well as next-to-leading order electroweak and polarisation effects. We include all lepton masses, hard photon emission, as well as non-perturbative hadronic corrections. The corresponding matrix elements are implemented in the Monte Carlo framework McMule. In order to obtain a numerically stable implementation, we extend next-to-soft stabilisation, a universal technique based on a next-to-leading-power expansion, to calculations with polarised leptons. As an example, we show results tailored to the Belle II detector with the current setup as well as a potential future configuration that includes polarised beams.

Photon splitting corrections to soft-photon resummation

In this paper we present an algorithm to add photon-splitting corrections to the Yennie-Frautschi-Suura-style soft-photon resummation available in the Sherpa MonteCarlo event generator. Photon-splitting corrections enter at NNLO in QED and, as these effects are not incorporated in the standard QED FSR resummations, their size is larger than the pure hard photon-emission corrections at the same order. We introduce different lepton dressing strategies which incorporate further leptons and hadrons in addition to the customary photons, and discuss their sensitivity to dressing parameters such as the cone size. Finally, we quantify the effects of photon splittings into charged fermions and scalars under different such dressing strategies on Z → e+e− decays and find effects of up to 1% for suitably inclusive dressing strategies independent of the dressing cone size, and up to 9% if only photons are used in the dressing procedure with large dressing cones.

Charge-asymmetric correlations in elastic lepton- and antilepton-proton scattering from real photon emission

Observation of charge asymmetry by comparing electron and positron, or muon and anti-muon, scattering on a hadronic target presently serves as an experimental tool to study two-photon exchange effects. In addition to two-photon exchange, real photon emission also contributes to the charge asymmetry. We present a theoretical formalism, explicit expressions, and a numerical analysis of hard photon emission for the charge asymmetry in lepton- and antilepton-proton scattering. Different kinematic conditions are considered, namely, either fixed transferred momentum squared or a fixed lepton scattering angle. The infrared divergence from real photon emission is treated by the Bardin-Shumeiko technique and canceled with the soft part of the two-photon exchange contribution extracted and calculated using Tsai approach. All final expressions are obtained beyond the ultrarelativistic approximation with respect to the lepton mass that allows to evaluate numerically of the considered effects not only for ultrarelativistic leptons (JLab) and but for moderately relativistic (MUSE) kinematics, too.

Dark matter searches with mono-photon signature at future e$^+$e$^-$ colliders

As any e^++e^-− scattering process can be accompanied by a hard photon emission from the initial state radiation, the analysis of the energy spectrum and angular distributions of those photons can be used to search for hard processes with an invisible final state. Thus high energy e^++e^-− colliders offer a unique possibility for the most general search of Dark matter based on the mono-photon signature. We consider production of DM particles via a mediator exchange at the International Linear Collider (ILC) and Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) experiments taking into account detector effects within the Delphes fast simulation framework. Limits on the light DM production in a generic model are set for a wide range of mediator masses and widths. For mediator masses up to the centre-of-mass energy of the collider, results from the mono-photon analysis are more stringent than the limits expected from direct resonance searches in Standard Model decay channels.

Effects of neutron-skin thickness on direct hard photon emission from reactions induced by the neutron-rich projectile Ca50

Direct hard photon emissions from incoherent proton-neutron bremsstrahlung in collisions of the neutron-rich projectile $^{50}$Ca with $^{12}$C and $^{40}$Ca targets are simulated in the framework of the isospin-dependent quantum molecular dynamics (IQMD) model. By adjusting the diffuseness parameter of neutron density in the droplet model to obtain different neutron skin thicknesses for $^{50}$Ca, the effects of neutron skin thickness on direct hard photon emission are investigated via several probes. The results show that more direct hard photons are produced with increasing neutron skin thickness in peripheral collisions. Meanwhile, we find that the multiplicity yield ratio $R_{cp}(\sigma_{\gamma})$ between central collisions and peripheral collisions as well as the rapidity dependence of multiplicity for direct hard photons are sensitive to neutron skin thickness. The results indicate that direct hard photon emission can be taken as an experimental observable to extract information on neutron skin thickness.

Improving the accuracy of hard photon emission by sigmoid sampling of the quantum-electrodynamic table in particle-in-cell Monte Carlo simulations.

Research on laser-plasma interaction in the quantum-electrodynamic (QED) regime has been greatly advanced by particle-in-cell and Monte Carlo simulations (PIC-MC). While these simulations are widely used, we find that a noticeable numerical error arises due to inappropriate implementation of the quantum process accounting for hard photon emission and pair production in the PIC-MC codes. The error stems from the low resolution of the QED table used to sample photon energy, which is generated in the logarithmic scale and cannot resolve high energy photons. We propose a sampling method via sigmoid function that handles both the low energy and high energy end of the photon emission spectrum. It guarantees the accuracy of PIC-MC algorithms for hard photon radiation and other related processes in the strong-field QED regime.

Contribution of hard photon emission to the charge asymmetry in elastic lepton- and antilepton-proton scattering

The influence of the hard photon emission on the charge asymmetry in the lepton- and antilepton-proton elastic scattering was evaluated for the first time beyond the ultrarelativistic limit, while retaining the lepton mass at all steps of the calculation. This contribution---responsible for the charge asymmetry---is induced by interference between real photon emission from the lepton and proton. During the calculation any excited states of the intermediated proton were not considered, allowing us to use the standard fermionic propagator for this particle. The infrared divergence extracted using Lorenz-invariant approach of Bardin-Shumeiko is canceled by the corresponding soft part of the two-photon exchange contribution. Numerical analysis was performed within kinematic conditions of Jefferson Lab measurements and MUSE experiment in PSI.

Nonrelativistic Electron–Ion Bremsstrahlung: An Approximate Formula for All Parameters

Abstract The evaluation of the electron–ion bremsstrahlung cross section—exact to all orders in the Coulomb potential—is computationally expensive due to the appearance of hypergeometric functions. Therefore, tabulations are widely used. Here, we provide an approximate formula for the nonrelativistic dipole process valid for all applicable relative velocities and photon energies. Its validity spans from the Born to the classical regime and from soft-photon emission to the kinematic endpoint. The error remains below 3% (and widely below 1%) except at an isolated region of hard-photon emission at the quantum-to-classical crossover. We use the formula to obtain the thermally averaged emission spectrum and cooling function in a Maxwellian plasma and demonstrate that they are accurate to better than 2%.

Sensitivity of future linear hbox {e}^+hbox {e}^- colliders to processes of dark matter production with light mediator exchange

As any e^+e^- scattering process can be accompanied by a hard photon emission from the initial state radiation, the analysis of the energy spectrum and angular distributions of those photons can be used to search for hard processes with an invisible final state. Thus high energy e^+e^- colliders offer a unique possibility for the most general search of dark matter (DM) based on the mono-photon signature. We consider production of DM particles at the International Linear Collider (ILC) and Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) experiments via a light mediator exchange. Detector effects are taken into account within the Delphes fast simulation framework. Limits on the light DM production in a simplified model are set as a function of the mediator mass and width based on the expected two-dimensional distributions of the reconstructed mono-photon events. The experimental sensitivity is extracted in terms of the DM production cross section. Limits on the mediator couplings are then presented for a wide range of mediator masses and widths. For light mediators, for masses up to the centre-of-mass energy of the collider, coupling limits derived from the mono-photon analysis are more stringent than those expected from direct resonance searches in decay channels to SM particles.

Relativistic plasma physics in supercritical fields

Since the invention of chirped pulse amplification, which was recognized by a Nobel Prize in physics in 2018, there has been a continuing increase in available laser intensity. Combined with advances in our understanding of the kinetics of relativistic plasma, studies of laser–plasma interactions are entering a new regime where the physics of relativistic plasmas is strongly affected by strong-field quantum electrodynamics (QED) processes, including hard photon emission and electron–positron (e−–e+) pair production. This coupling of quantum emission processes and relativistic collective particle dynamics can result in dramatically new plasma physics phenomena, such as the generation of dense e−–e+ pair plasma from near vacuum, complete laser energy absorption by QED processes, or the stopping of an ultra-relativistic electron beam, which could penetrate a cm of lead, by a hair's breadth of laser light. In addition to being of fundamental interest, it is crucial to study this new regime to understand the next generation of ultra-high intensity laser-matter experiments and their resulting applications, such as high energy ion, electron, positron, and photon sources for fundamental physics studies, medical radiotherapy, and next generation radiography for homeland security and industry.

Radiative corrections in proton–antiproton annihilation to electron–positron and their application to the PANDA experiment

Radiative corrections to the annihilation of proton--antiproton into electron--positron are revisited, including virtual and real (soft and hard) photon emission. This issue is relevant for the time-like form factors measurements planned at the PANDA experiment at the FAIR facility, in next future. The relevant formulas are given. A stand-alone Monte-Carlo integrator is developed on the basis of the calculated radiative cross section and its application to the PANDA experiment is illustrated.

Non-Dipole Features of the Photon Emission Spectrum of a Fast Oriented Lepton in a Crystal

The probability of the non-dipole emission of photons by channeled particle is calculated. The emission of hard photons with an energy comparable with that of the incident channeled particle is studied. The quasi-Bloch energy spectrum of an oriented fast charged particle entering a crystal at an angle smaller and greater than the Lindhard angle is calculated. The initial and final spectra of the channeled particle are described by different sets of band wave functions corresponding to different energies. The processes of photon generation by a quantum particle entering into the crystal at an angle larger and smaller than the Lindhard angle are considered on an equal basis. The spectrum of hard-photon emission is shown to consist of a set of well-observed emission lines.

Investigating the origin of the Fe emission lines of the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 205

ABSTRACT We have investigated the nature and origin of the Fe K emission lines in Mrk 205 using observations with Suzaku and XMM–Newton, aiming to resolve the ambiguity between a broad emission line and multiple unresolved lines of higher ionization. We detect the presence of a narrow Fe K α emission line along with a broad-band Compton reflection hump at energies $E\gt 10\rm \, \, {\rm keV}$. These are consistent with reflected emission of hard X-ray photons off a Compton-thick material of $N_{\rm H}\ge 2.15\times 10^{24}\rm \, \, {\rm cm^{-2}}$. In addition we detect a partially covering ionized absorption with ionization parameter $\log (\xi /\rm \, erg\, cm\, s^{-1})=1.9_{-0.5}^{+0.1}$, column density $N_{\rm H}=(5.6_{-1.9}^{+2.0})\times 10^{22}\rm \, \, {\rm cm^{-2}}$, and a covering factor of $0.22_{-0.06}^{+0.09}$. We detect the presence of emission arising out of ionized disc reflection contributing in the soft and hard X-rays consistently in all the observations. We however, could not definitely ascertain the presence of a relativistically broadened Fe line in the X-ray spectra. Using relativistic reflection models, we found that the data are unable to statistically distinguish between the scenarios when the supermassive black hole is non-rotating and when it is maximally spinning. Using the disc reflection model we also find that the accretion disc of the active galactic nucleus may be truncated at a distance 6RG &amp;lt; R &amp;lt; 12RG, which may suggest why there may not be any broad Fe line. The Eddington rate of the source is low (λEdd = 0.03), which points to an inefficient accretion, possibly due to a truncated disc.

Features of the Emission Spectrum during Channeling of Ultrarelativistic Leptons

The probability of photon emission by a channeled particle is calculated in the nondipole case. The emission of hard photons with energies comparable with the energy of the incident channeled particle is studied. The quasi-Bloch energy spectrum is calculated for an oriented fast charged particle entering a crystal at angles both smaller and larger than the Lindhard angle. The initial and final spectra of the channeled particle belong to different sets of the wavefunctions of the bands corresponding to different energies. The generation of photons by a quantum particle oriented with respect to the crystal and entering the crystal at angles both larger and smaller than the Lindhard angle are considered on the same basis. It is shown that the emission spectrum of hard photons consists of a set of distinct emission lines.

Chiral Cherenkov and chiral transition radiation in anisotropic matter

A significant contribution to the electromagnetic radiation by a fast electric charge moving in anisotropic chiral matter arises from spontaneous photon radiation due to the chiral anomaly. While such a process, also known as the "vacuum Cherenkov radiation", is forbidden in the QED vacuum, it can occur in chiral matter, where it is more appropriate to call it the "chiral Cherenkov radiation". Its contribution to the radiation spectrum is of order $\alpha^2$ compared to $\alpha^3$ of the bremsstrahlung. I derive the frequency spectrum and the angular distribution of this radiation in the high energy limit. The quantum effects due to the hard photon emission and the fermion mass are taken into account. The obtained spectra are analyzed in the case the quark-gluon plasma and a Weyl semimetal.

Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades

QED cascades are complex avalanche processes of hard photon emission and electron-positron pair creation driven by ultrastrong electromagnetic fields. They play a fundamental role in astrophysical environments such as a pulsars’ magnetosphere, rendering an earth-based implementation with intense lasers attractive. In the literature, QED cascades were also predicted to limit the attainable intensity in a set-up of colliding laser beams in a tenuous gas such as the residual gas of a vacuum chamber, therefore severely hindering experiments at extreme field intensities. Here, we demonstrate that the onset of QED cascades may be either prevented even at intensities around 1026 W/cm2 with tightly focused laser pulses and low-Z gases, or facilitated at intensities below 1024 W/cm2 with enlarged laser focal areas or high-Z gases. These findings pave the way for the control of novel experiments such as the generation of pure electron-positron-photon plasmas from laser energy, and for probing QED in the extreme-intensity regime where the quantum vacuum becomes unstable.