Effects of radiation damping on charged particle motion in the field of a strong electromagnetic wave

Koga, J. K.; Zhidkov, A.*; Sasaki, Akira; Uesaka, Mitsuru*

By focusing petawatt class lasers to very small spot sizes the amount of radiation emitted by electrons can become very large. Resultingly, the damping of the electron motion by the emission of this radiation can become large. It has been found that in the radiation damping regime of the laser pulse-plasma interaction a substantial portion of the laser pulse energy is converted into very short wavelength electromagnetic radiation. Even in the relatively low intensity limit, radiation damping may play an important role. In order to study this problem a code is written to solve a set of equations describing the evolution of a strong electromagnetic wave interacting with plasma. These equations include the effect of radiation damping. The equations are finite differenced and solved on a uniform grid in one spatial dimension. The difference in the laser pulse and plasma electron dynamics will be studied in both regimes of low damping and high damping.