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<p>Muons play a crucial role in both fundamental and applied physics. Traditionally, they have been generated from cosmic rays or with proton accelerators. With the advent of ultrashort high-intensity lasers capable of accelerating electrons to gigaelectronvolt energies, muons can also be produced in laser laboratories. Here we report a proof-of-principle experiment of muon production. We accelerated an electron beam to gigaelectronvolt energies with an ultrashort, high-intensity laser pulse and passed the beam through a lead converter target in which muons were generated. We confirmed the muon signal by measuring its lifetime. We investigated the photo-production, electro-production and Bethe–Heitler processes underlying muon generation and their subsequent detection with Geant4 simulations. The results show that the dominant contribution stems from photo-production and electro-production. We estimate that a muon yield of up to 0.01 muon per incoming electron could be achieved in the converter target. This laser-driven muon source features compact, ultrashort pulses and high flux. Moreover, its implementation in a small laser laboratory is relatively straightforward, which dramatically reduces barriers for research in areas such as muonic X-ray elemental analysis or muon spin spectroscopy.</p>

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Proof-of-principle demonstration of muon production with an ultrashort high-intensity laser

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年5月6日

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  • Feng Zhang,
  • Li Deng,
  • Yanjie Ge,
  • Jiaxing Wen,
  • Bo Cui,
  • Ke Feng,
  • Hao Wang,
  • Chen Wu,
  • Ziwen Pan,
  • Hongjie Liu,
  • Zhigang Deng,
  • Zongxin Zhang,
  • Liangwen Chen,
  • Duo Yan,
  • Lianqiang Shan,
  • Zongqiang Yuan,
  • Chao Tian,
  • Jiayi Qian,
  • Jiacheng Zhu,
  • Yi Xu,
  • Yuhong Yu,
  • Xueheng Zhang,
  • Lei Yang,
  • Weimin Zhou,
  • Yuqiu Gu,
  • Wentao Wang,
  • Yuxin Leng,
  • Zhiyu Sun,
  • Ruxin Li

摘要

Muons play a crucial role in both fundamental and applied physics. Traditionally, they have been generated from cosmic rays or with proton accelerators. With the advent of ultrashort high-intensity lasers capable of accelerating electrons to gigaelectronvolt energies, muons can also be produced in laser laboratories. Here we report a proof-of-principle experiment of muon production. We accelerated an electron beam to gigaelectronvolt energies with an ultrashort, high-intensity laser pulse and passed the beam through a lead converter target in which muons were generated. We confirmed the muon signal by measuring its lifetime. We investigated the photo-production, electro-production and Bethe–Heitler processes underlying muon generation and their subsequent detection with Geant4 simulations. The results show that the dominant contribution stems from photo-production and electro-production. We estimate that a muon yield of up to 0.01 muon per incoming electron could be achieved in the converter target. This laser-driven muon source features compact, ultrashort pulses and high flux. Moreover, its implementation in a small laser laboratory is relatively straightforward, which dramatically reduces barriers for research in areas such as muonic X-ray elemental analysis or muon spin spectroscopy.