Laser plasma accelerated ultra-intense electron beam for efficiently exciting nuclear isomers

Jie Feng; YaoJun Li; JunHao Tan; WenZhao Wang; YiFei Li; XiaoPeng Zhang; Yue Meng; XuLei Ge; Feng Liu; WenChao Yan; ChangBo Fu; LiMing Chen; Jie Zhang

arXiv · 2203.06454

Laser plasma accelerated ultra-intense electron beam for efficiently exciting nuclear isomers

Jie Feng·YaoJun Li·JunHao Tan·WenZhao Wang·YiFei Li·XiaoPeng Zhang·Yue Meng·XuLei Ge·Feng Liu·WenChao Yan·ChangBo Fu·LiMing Chen·Jie Zhang

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Abstract

Utilizing laser plasma wakefield to accelerate ultra-high charge electron beam is critical for many pioneering applications, for example to efficiently produce nuclear isomers with short lifetimes which may be widely used. However, because of the beam loading effect, electron charge in a single plasma bubble is limited in level of hundreds picocoulomb. Here, we experimentally present that a hundred kilo-ampere, twenty nanocoulomb, tens of MeV collimated electron beam is produced from a chain of wakefield acceleration, via a tightly focused intense laser pulse transversely matched in dense plasma. This ultra-intense electron beam ascribes to a novel efficient injection that the nitrogen atom inner shell electrons are ionized and continuously injected into multiple plasma bubbles. This intense electron beam has been utilized to exciting nuclear isomers with an ultra-high peak efficiency of $1.76\times10^{15}$ particles/s via photonuclear reactions. This efficient production method of isomers can be widely used for pumping isotopes with excited state lifetimes down to picosecond, which is benefit for deep understanding nuclear transition mechanisms and stimulating gamma-ray lasers.

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Jie Feng, YaoJun Li, JunHao Tan, WenZhao Wang, YiFei Li, XiaoPeng Zhang, Yue Meng, XuLei Ge, Feng Liu, WenChao Yan, ChangBo Fu, LiMing Chen, Jie Zhang. 2022-03-12. Laser plasma accelerated ultra-intense electron beam for efficiently exciting nuclear isomers. https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.06454

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