The suppression of radiation reaction and laser field depletion in laser-electron beam interaction

The effects of radiation reaction (RR) have been studied extensively by using the interaction of ultraintense lasers with a counter-propagating relativistic electron. At the laser intensity at the order of 1023 W/cm2, the effects of RR are significant in a few laser periods for a relativistic electron. However, a laser at such intensity is tightly focused and the laser energy is usually assumed to be fixed. Then, the signal of RR and energy conservation cannot be guaranteed. To assess the effects of RR in a tightly focused laser pulse and the evolution of the laser energy, we simulated this interaction with a beam of 109 electrons by means of a Particle-In-Cell method. We observe that the effects of RR are suppressed due to the ponderomotive force and accompanied by a non-negligible amount of laser field energy reduction. This is because the ponderomotive force prevents the electrons from approaching the center of the laser pulse and leads to an interaction at the weaker field region. At the same time, th...