Amazing stuff! This may have enormous potential!
"A team led by researchers at Osaka University and University of California, San Diego has conducted simulations of creating matter solely from collisions of light particles. Their method circumvents what would otherwise be the intensity limitations of modern lasers and can be readily implemented by using presently available technology. This work might help experimentally test long-standing theories such as the Standard Model of particle physics, and possibly the need to revise them. ..."
From the abstract:
"We discovered a simple regime where a near-critical plasma irradiated by a laser of experimentally available intensity can self-organize to produce positrons and accelerate them to ultrarelativistic energies. The laser pulse piles up electrons at its leading edge, producing a strong longitudinal plasma electric field. The field creates a moving gamma-ray collider that generates positrons via the linear Breit-Wheeler process—annihilation of two gamma rays into an electron-positron pair. At the same time, the plasma field, rather than the laser, serves as an accelerator for the positrons. The discovery of positron acceleration was enabled by a first-of-its-kind kinetic simulation that generates pairs via photon-photon collisions. Using available laser intensities of 10^22 W/cm^2, the discovered regime can generate a GeV positron beam with a divergence angle of around 10° and a total charge of 0.1 pC. The result paves the way to experimental observation of the linear Breit-Wheeler process and to applications requiring positron beams."
Positron Generation and Acceleration in a Self-Organized Photon Collider Enabled by an Ultraintense Laser Pulse (no public access)
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