TY  - CONF
AU  - Gibbon, Paul
AU  - Chitgar, Zahra
AU  - Büscher, Markus
AU  - Fedorets, Pavel
AU  - Lehrach, Andreas
AU  - Li, Xiaofeng
AU  - Zheng, Chuan
TI  - Experimental and numerical studies on laser-generated spin-polarized particle beams
M1  - FZJ-2022-05151
SP  - 207
PY  - 2022
AB  - Spin-polarized particle beams are already used for a wide range of applications in nuclear, particle and material physics to probe the structure of matter at the subatomic level. Such sources offer the means to gain insight into quantum chromodynamics, nuclear reactions and symmetry violations, and can in principle even yield enhanced fusion cross-sections in reaction channels of interest. Given the rapid advances in laser-driven particle acceleration over the past 3 decades, attention has recently turned to the question of whether polarized particle beams can also be accelerated via a compact laser-plasma scheme while preserving a high degree of net beam polarization.  Experiments by the Jülich team have previously demonstrated that an unpolarized proton source is not polarized during the interaction when subjected to laser acceleration in a gas-jet configuration at multi-mJ energies. These preliminary studies lend confidence to the prospect of accelerating a pre-polarized ion source, which has led to more recent ongoing campaigns using the PHELIX laser system at GSI Darmstadt to accelerate $^3$He and $^4$He ions. The polarization of the laser-driven $^3$He ion beam within a few MeV was analyzed by secondary scattering in a deuterated foil target,  both by Rutherford scattering of $^3$He ions and the Deuterium-$^3$He fusion reaction, showing whether the laser-driven $^3$He ion beam is polarized when the pre-polarized $^3$He gas target is utilized. Simulations of these and other higher-intensity experimental configurations using the EPOCH code enhanced with a new spin-tracking module will also be presented with the aim of assessing how well the global beam polarization is conserved.
T2  - 48th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics
CY  - 27 Jun 2022 - 1 Jul 2022, Maastricht (Netherlands)
Y2  - 27 Jun 2022 - 1 Jul 2022
M2  - Maastricht, Netherlands
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)8
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/911904
ER  -