Electron-positron pair plasmas represent a unique state of matter, whereby there exists an intrinsic and complete symmetry between negatively charged (matter) and positively charged (antimatter) particles. These plasmas play a fundamental role in the dynamics of ultra-massive astrophysical objects and are believed to be associated with the emission of ultra-bright gamma-ray bursts. Despite extensive theoretical modelling, our knowledge of this state of matter is still speculative, owing to the extreme difficulty in recreating neutral matter-antimatter plasmas in the laboratory. Here we show that, by using a compact laser-driven setup, ion-free electron-positron plasmas with unique characteristics can be produced. Their charge neutrality (same amount of matter and antimatter), high-density and small divergence finally open up the possibility of studying electron-positron plasmas in controlled laboratory experiments.

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Generation of neutral and high-density electron-positron pair plasmas in the laboratory

In recent years, there has been a wealth of new science involving low-energy antimatter (i.e., positrons and antiprotons) at energies ranging from 10 to less than 10 eV. Much of this progress has been driven by the development of new plasma-based techniques to accumulate, manipulate and deliver antiparticles for specific applications. This article focuses on the advances made in this area using positrons. However many of the resulting techniques are relevant to antiprotons as well. An overview is presented of relevant theory of single-component plasmas in electromagnetic traps. Methods are described to produce intense sources of positrons and to efficiently slow the typically energetic particles thus produced. Techniques are described to trap positrons efficiently and to cool and compress the resulting positron gases and plasmas. Finally, the procedures developed to deliver tailored pulses and beams (e.g., in intense, short bursts, or as quasi-monoenergetic continuous beams) for specific applications are reviewed. The status of development in specific application areas is also reviewed. One example is the formation of antihydrogen atoms for fundamental physics [e.g., tests of invariance under charge conjugation, parity inversion and time reversal (the CPT theorem), and studies of the interaction of gravity with antimatter]. Other applications discussed include atomic and materials physics studies and study of the electron-positron many-body system, including both classical electron-positron plasmas and the complementary quantum system in the form of Bose-condensed gases of positronium atoms. Areas of future promise are also discussed. The review concludes with a brief summary and a list of outstanding challenges. ∗ Contact information: jrdanielson@ucsd.edu † Contact information: ddubin@ucsd.edu ‡ Contact information: rgreaves@fpsi.edu § Contact information: csurko@ucsd.edu

https://link.aps.org/accepted/10.1103/RevModPhys.87.247

Plasma and trap-based techniques for science with positrons

The new generation of laser facilities is expected to deliver short (10 fs–100 fs) laser pulses with 10–100 PW of peak power. This opens an opportunity to study matter at extreme intensities in the laboratory and provides access to new physics. Here we propose to scatter GeV-class electron beams from laser-plasma accelerators with a multi-PW laser at normal incidence. In this configuration, one can both create and accelerate electron-positron pairs. The new particles are generated in the laser focus and gain relativistic momentum in the direction of laser propagation. Short focal length is an advantage, as it allows the particles to be ejected from the focal region with a net energy gain in vacuum. Electron-positron beams obtained in this setup have a low divergence, are quasi-neutral and spatially separated from the initial electron beam. The pairs attain multi-GeV energies which are not limited by the maximum energy of the initial electron beam. We present an analytical model for the expected energy cutoff, supported by 2D and 3D particle-in-cell simulations. The experimental implications, such as the sensitivity to temporal synchronisation and laser duration is assessed to provide guidance for the future experiments.

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Multi-GeV electron-positron beam generation from laser-electron scattering

A method is given to rapidly compute quasisymmetric stellarator magnetic fields for plasma confinement, without the need to call a three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium code inside an optimization iteration. The method is based on direct solution of the equations of magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium and quasisymmetry using Garren & Boozer’s expansion about the magnetic axis (Phys Fluids B, vol. 3, 1991, p. 2805), and it is several orders of magnitude faster than the conventional optimization approach. The work here extends the method of Landreman et al. (J. Plasma Phys., vol. 85, 2019, 905850103), which was limited to flux surfaces with elliptical cross-section, to higher order in the aspect-ratio expansion. As a result, configurations can be generated with strong shaping that achieve quasisymmetry to high accuracy. Using this construction, we give the first numerical demonstrations of Garren and Boozer’s ideal scaling of quasisymmetry breaking with the cube of the inverse aspect ratio. We also demonstrate a strongly non-axisymmetric configuration (vacuum rotational transform , the smallest ever reported. To generate boundary shapes of finite-minor-radius configurations, a careful analysis is given of the effect of substituting a finite minor radius into the near-axis expansion. The approach here can provide analytic insight into the space of possible quasisymmetric stellarator configurations, and it can be used to generate good initial conditions for conventional stellarator optimization.

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Constructing stellarators with quasisymmetry to high order

In traditional electron/ion laboratory plasmas, the system size is much larger than both the plasma skin depth and the Debye length . In current and planned efforts to create electron/positron plasmas in the laboratory, this is not necessarily the case. A low-temperature, low-density system may have ; a high-density, thermally relativistic system may have . Here we consider the question of what plasma physics phenomena are accessible (and/or diagnostically exploitable) in these different regimes and how this depends on magnetization. While particularly relevant to ongoing pair plasma creation experiments, the transition from single-particle behaviour to collective, ‘plasma’ effects – and how the criterion for that threshold is different for different phenomena – is an important but often neglected topic in electron/ion systems as well.

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Debye length and plasma skin depth: two length scales of interest in the creation and diagnosis of laboratory pair plasmas

Electron-positron plasmas are unique in their behavior due to the mass symmetry. Strongly magnetized electron-positron, or pair, plasmas are present in a number of astrophysical settings, such as astrophysical jets, but they have not yet been created in the laboratory. Plans for the creation and diagnosis of pair plasmas in a stellarator are presented, based on extrapolation of the results from the Columbia Non-neutral Torus stellarator, as well as recent developments in positron sources. The particular challenges of positronium injection and pair plasma diagnostics are addressed.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/14/3/035010/pdf

E Winkler

Papers

Plans for the creation and studies of electron-positron plasmas in a stellarator