Analytical and numerical investigation of the brightness of high power X- and gamma rays as a result of intense laser interacting with plasma mirrors in radiation pressure regime

Abstract

At laser intensity in the range ~ 1022 –1023 W/cm2, the radiation pressure starts to play a key role in the interaction of an intense electromagnetic wave with a dense plasma foil. In this radiation pressure dominant regime (RPD regime) we present our numerical results for the frequency and brightness of the reflected radiation from a uniformly moving plasma mirror. The interaction of the electromagnetic wave with an approaching plasma mirror results in the Doppler-shifted reflected radiation. The reflected photon frequency lies in the hard X-ray or gamma-ray range. For the source pulse energy s= 12 J, λs = λ = 0.8µ m, ne = 480 ncr = 5.4×1023cm-3´ (1µ m / λ)2, there are approximately 9.6×1042 hard X-ray photons/ (mm2-mrad2 -s.-0.1% bandwidth) in the energy range ~ 10 keV. In the case when for the same parameters of source laser pulse and driver pulse normalized vector potential ad=300 , λd = 0.8 mm the brightness is found to be 3.9×1034 photons / (mm2 - mrad2 - s. - 0.1% bandwidth) in the energy range ~100 keV. These radiations have broad range of applications in many areas of research e.g. medicine and material science.