Revealing the Nonlinear Amplification of Radiation Reaction Effects via Vortex Radiation
Radiation reaction (RR), the back-action of emitted radiation on an accelerated charge, dominates the dynamics of ultrarelativistic electrons in an intense electromagnetic field. By solving the Landau-Lifshitz (LL) equation for an electron in an intense circularly polarized plane wave, we find that once the cumulative RR effect on the oscillation radius becomes non-negligible over hundreds of laser cycles, the laser intensity nonlinearly amplifies RR through the modified longitudinal drift velocity, reshaping the vortex $γ$-ray emission in nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering. The energy spectrum acquires MeV-scale central-frequency red shifts, spectral broadening, and harmonic overlap, while the ellipticity of higher-order harmonics becomes non-smooth and overlapping in frequency--angle space, so that the superposed total ellipticity deviates progressively from the RR-free case. These harmonic-resolved spectral and polarization fingerprints constitute a self-referenced multidimensional diagnostic of RR effects that complements energy-spectrum measurements, with direct implications for bright high-energy $γ$-ray sources and the modeling of extreme astrophysical environments such as neutron-star magnetospheres.