Research progress of quantum electrodynamics cascade and dense positron production driven by interaction between extremely intense lasers and solid targets
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摘要: 极端超短超强激光脉冲的诞生将光与物质的相互作用推进到由辐射阻尼效应和量子电动力学(QED)效应占主导的高度非线性物理范畴。强场QED效应蕴含了丰富的物理过程包括辐射阻尼、高能伽马辐射、正负电子对产生、QED级联、真空极化等,是高能量密度物理和强场物理研究领域的前沿热点。QED级联是解释致密天体辐射和伽马射线暴形成的重要物理机制,其产生的稠密正电子源在高能物理、材料无损探测、癌症诊断等领域亦有重要的应用前景。介绍了QED级联过程及其理论模型,讨论了固体靶中的QED级联发展及其诱导的非线性物理效应,并回顾了固体靶中稠密正电子产生的主要研究成果。
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关键词:
- 强场量子电动力学效应 /
- 超强激光与固体靶作用 /
- 级联发展 /
- 稠密正电子产生 /
- 分析模型
Abstract: With the advent of ultra-short ultra-intense laser pulses, the interaction between light and matter enters the nonlinear physics regime dominated by radiation damping and quantum electrodynamics (QED) effects. The strong-field QED effects contain a wealth of physical processes, including radiation damping effect, high-energy gamma radiation, electron-positron pairs generation, QED cascade, vacuum polarization, and so on. These effects are frontiers and hot topics in high energy density physics and strong field physics. Among them, QED cascade is an important mechanism, which can explain the formation of the ultra-dense radiation in the cosmos and the gamma-ray burst, and the resulting dense positron source has important application prospects in high-energy physics, nondestructive assay of materials, and cancer diagnosis. In this paper, the cascading process of QED and the theoretical model are introduced, then the QED cascade development in solid targets and the resulting nonlinear physical effects are discussed. Finally, the main research results of dense positron generation in solid targets are reviewed. -
图 4 两束对向传播激光与薄固体靶相互作用下,在y=0处的正电子密度时空演化图[(a)和(c)]以及高能光子密度的时空演化图[(b)和(d)],其中图[(a)和(b)]和[(c)和(d)]分别显示了激光强度为4×1023和1.2×1024 W/cm2的情况[36]
Figure 4. Spatiotemporal evolutions of the positron (a) and (c) and high-energy photon (b) and (d) densities at y = 0 in the case of counter-propagating linearly polarized lasers interaction with solid targets, where sub figures (a) and (b) and (c) and (d) are shown for the cases with the laser intensities of 4×1023 and 1.2×1024 W/cm2, respectively [36]
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