title: Generation of overdense and high-energy electron-positron-pair plasmas by irradiation of a thin foil with two ultraintense lasers.
abstract: A scheme for enhanced quantum electrodynamics (QED) production of electron-positron-pair plasmas is proposed that uses two ultraintense lasers irradiating a thin solid foil from opposite sides. In the scheme, under a proper matching condition, in addition to the skin-depth emission of γ-ray photons and Breit-Wheeler creation of pairs on each side of the foil, a large number of high-energy electrons and photons from one side can propagate through it and interact with the laser on the other side, leading to much enhanced γ-ray emission and pair production. More importantly, the created pairs can be collected later and confined to the center by opposite laser radiation pressures when the foil becomes transparent, resulting in the formation of unprecedentedly overdense and high-energy pair plasmas. Two-dimensional QED particle-in-cell simulations show that electron-positron-pair plasmas with overcritical density 10(22) cm(-3) and a high energy of 100s of MeV are obtained with 10 PW lasers at intensities 10(23) W/cm(2), which are of key significance for laboratory astrophysics studies.
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Physics and Technology, HEDPS, State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, and School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors.forename: H X
authors.initials: HX
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Physics and Technology, HEDPS, State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, and School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Physics and Technology, HEDPS, State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, and School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Physics and Technology, HEDPS, State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, and School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors.forename: X R
authors.initials: XR
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Physics and Technology, HEDPS, State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, and School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.|Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, Beijing 100094, China.
authors.forename: C T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Physics and Technology, HEDPS, State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, and School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: X Q
authors.initials: XQ
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, Beijing 100094, China.
authors.forename: S Z
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Borghesi
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zepf
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Physics and Technology, HEDPS, State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, and School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.|Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, Beijing 100094, China.
authors.forename: X T
authors.initials: XT
authors.lastname: He