Generation of electromagnetic fields of extremely high intensity by coherent summation of Cherenkov superradiance pulses

Ginzburg, N.S. and Cross, A. W. and Golovanov, A. A. and Mesyats, G. A. and Pedos, M. S. and Phelps, A. D. R. and Romanchenko, I. V. and Rostov, V. V. and Rukin, S. N. and Sharypov, K. A. and Shpak, V. G. and Shunailov, S. A. and Ulmaskulov, M. R. and Yalandin, M. I. and Zotova, I. V. (2015) Generation of electromagnetic fields of extremely high intensity by coherent summation of Cherenkov superradiance pulses. Physical Review Letters, 115 (11). 114802. ISSN 1079-7114 (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.114802)

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Abstract

We demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally the possibility of correlating the phase of a Cherenkov superradiance (SR) pulse to the sharp edge of a current pulse, when spontaneous emission of the electron bunch edge serves as the seed for SR processes. By division of the driving voltage pulse across several parallel channels equipped with independent cathodes we can synchronize several SR sources to arrange a two-dimensional array. In the experiments carried out, coherent summation of radiation from four independent 8-mm wavelength band SR generators with peak power 600 MW results in the interference maximum of the directional diagram with an intensity that is equivalent to radiation from a single source with a power of 10 GW.