Quantum radiation reaction in laser-electron beam collisions

It is possible using current high intensity laser facilities to reach the quantum radiation reaction regime for energetic electrons. An experiment using a wakefield accelerator to drive GeV electrons into a counterpropagating laser pulse would demonstrate the increase in the yield of high energy photons caused by the stochastic nature of quantum synchrotron emission: we show that a beam of ${10}^9$ 1 GeV electrons colliding with a 30 fs laser pulse of intensity ${10}^{22}{\text{Wcm}}^{-2}$ will emit 6300 photons with energy greater than 700 MeV, $60\times$ the number predicted by classical theory.