Laser-particle collider for multi-GeV photon production (Conference Presentation)

As an alternative to Compton backscattering and bremsstrahlung, the process of colliding highenergy electron beams with strong laser fields can more efficiently provide both cleaner and brighter source of photons in the multi-GeV range for fundamental studies in nuclear and quark-gluon physics. In order to favor the emission of high-energy quanta and minimize their decay into electron-positron pairs the fields must not only be sufficiently strong, but also well localized. We here examine these aspects and develop the concept of a laser-particle collider tailored for high-energy photon generation. We show that the use of multiple colliding laser pulses with 0.4 PW of total power is capable of converting more than 18 % of the initial multi-GeV electron beam energy into photons, each of which carries more than half of the electron energy