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Gamma-ray vortices from nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light

Inverse Thomson scattering is a well-known radiation process that produces high-energy photons both in nature and in the laboratory. Nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering occurring inside an intense light field is a process which generates higher harmonic photons. In this paper, we theoretically show...

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Autores principales: Taira, Yoshitaka, Hayakawa, Takehito, Katoh, Masahiro
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5504041/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28694458
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05187-2
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author Taira, Yoshitaka
Hayakawa, Takehito
Katoh, Masahiro
author_facet Taira, Yoshitaka
Hayakawa, Takehito
Katoh, Masahiro
author_sort Taira, Yoshitaka
collection PubMed
description Inverse Thomson scattering is a well-known radiation process that produces high-energy photons both in nature and in the laboratory. Nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering occurring inside an intense light field is a process which generates higher harmonic photons. In this paper, we theoretically show that the higher harmonic gamma-ray produced by nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light is a gamma-ray vortex, which means that it possesses a helical wave front and carries orbital angular momentum. Our work explains a recent experimental result regarding nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering that clearly shows an annular intensity distribution as a remarkable feature of a vortex beam. Our work implies that gamma-ray vortices should be produced in various situations in astrophysics in which high-energy electrons and intense circularly polarized light fields coexist. Nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering is a promising radiation process for realizing a gamma-ray vortex source based on currently available laser and accelerator technologies, which would be an indispensable tool for exploring gamma-ray vortex science.
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spelling pubmed-55040412017-07-12 Gamma-ray vortices from nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light Taira, Yoshitaka Hayakawa, Takehito Katoh, Masahiro Sci Rep Article Inverse Thomson scattering is a well-known radiation process that produces high-energy photons both in nature and in the laboratory. Nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering occurring inside an intense light field is a process which generates higher harmonic photons. In this paper, we theoretically show that the higher harmonic gamma-ray produced by nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light is a gamma-ray vortex, which means that it possesses a helical wave front and carries orbital angular momentum. Our work explains a recent experimental result regarding nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering that clearly shows an annular intensity distribution as a remarkable feature of a vortex beam. Our work implies that gamma-ray vortices should be produced in various situations in astrophysics in which high-energy electrons and intense circularly polarized light fields coexist. Nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering is a promising radiation process for realizing a gamma-ray vortex source based on currently available laser and accelerator technologies, which would be an indispensable tool for exploring gamma-ray vortex science. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-07-10 /pmc/articles/PMC5504041/ /pubmed/28694458 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05187-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Taira, Yoshitaka
Hayakawa, Takehito
Katoh, Masahiro
Gamma-ray vortices from nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light
title Gamma-ray vortices from nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light
title_full Gamma-ray vortices from nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light
title_fullStr Gamma-ray vortices from nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light
title_full_unstemmed Gamma-ray vortices from nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light
title_short Gamma-ray vortices from nonlinear inverse Thomson scattering of circularly polarized light
title_sort gamma-ray vortices from nonlinear inverse thomson scattering of circularly polarized light
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5504041/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28694458
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05187-2
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