UC San Diego

Conventionally, friction is understood as an efficient dissipation mechanism depleting a physical system of energy as an unavoidable feature of any realistic device involving moving parts, e.g., in mechanical brakes. In this work, we demonstrate that this intuitive picture loses validity in nonlinear quantum electrodynamics, exemplified in a scenario where spatially random friction counter-intuitively results in a highly directional energy flow. This peculiar behavior is caused by radiation friction, i.e., the energy loss of an accelerated charge due to the emission of radiation. We demonstrate analytically and numerically how radiation friction can enhance the performance of a specific class of laser-driven particle accelerators. We find the unexpected directional energy boost to be due to the particles' energy being reduced through friction whence the driving laser can accelerate them more efficiently. In a quantitative case we find the energy of the laser-accelerated particles to be enhanced by orders of magnitude.