We report results of new pair creation experiments using ~100 Joule pulses of the Texas Petawatt Laser to irradiate solid gold and platinum targets, with intensities up to ~1.9 × 1021 W.cm−2 and pulse durations as short as ~130 fs. Positron to electron (e+/e−) ratios >15% were observed for many thick disk and rod targets, with the highest e+/e− ratio reaching ~50% for a Pt rod. The inferred pair yield was ~ few ×1010 with emerging pair density reaching ~1015/cm3 so that the pair skin depth becomes < pair jet transverse size. These results represent major milestones towards the goal of creating a significant quantity of dense pair-dominated plasmas with e+/e− approaching 100% and pair skin depth ≪ pair plasma size, which will have wide-ranging applications to astrophysics and fundamental physics.

We present data for relativistic hot electron production by the Texas Petawatt Laser irradiating solid Au targets with thickness between 1 and 4 mm. The experiment was performed at the short focus target chamber TC1 in July 2011, with intensities on the order of several x10 19 W.cm -2 and laser energies around 50 J. We discuss the design of an electron-positron magnetic spectrometer to record the lepton energy spectra ejected from the Au targets and present a deconvolution algorithm to extract the lepton energy spectra. We measured hot electron spectra out to ~ 50 MeV, which show a narrow peak around 10 -20 MeV, plus high energy exponential tail. The hot electron spectral shapes appear significantly different from those reported for other PW lasers. We did not observe direct evidence of positron production above the background.

The apparatus and analysis techniques of the authors demonstrated that an inexpensive, lightweight, permanent magnet electron energy spectrometer can be used for measuring the electron energy distributions of therapeutic electron beams (6-20 MeV). The primary goal of future work is to develop a real-time spectrometer by incorporating a real-time imager, which has potential applications such as beam matching, ongoing beam tune maintenance, and measuring spectra for input into Monte Carlo beam calculations.

The energies of group Auger transitions are calculated using Slater's rules to allow for the effects of ionisation on orbital relaxation. The calculated intensities of Auger spectra, based on the Bethe expression for the ionisation cross-sections of the various electronic levels. are in fair agreement with the observed data. Assignment of the transitions show the predominance of the contribution of valence electrons to the Auger process.

Results indicate that this spectrometer and methodology could be useful for measuring energy spectra of clinical electron beams at isocenter. Future work will (1) remove the small effect of the detector response function (due to pinhole size and incident angular spread) from the energy spectra, (2) extract the energy spectra exiting the accelerator from current results, (3) use the spectrometer to compare energy spectra of matched beams among our clinical sites, and (4) modify the spectrometer to utilize radiochromic film.