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    Experimental Evidence of Vortex γ Photons in All-Optical Inverse Compton Scattering

    Mingxuan Wei1,*, Siyu Chen1,*, Yu Wang2,*, Pei-Lun He1,3, Xichen Hu1, Mingyang Zhu1, Hao Xu1, Weijun Zhou1, Jiao Jia1 et al.

    Xulei Ge1,4, Lin Lu1,3, Boyuan Li1,3, Feng Liu1,3, Min Chen1,3, Liming Chen1,3, Pavel Polynkin5, Jian-Xing Li2,6,†, Wenchao Yan1,3,‡, and Jie Zhang1,3,4

    • 1State Key Laboratory of Dark Matter Physics, Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (MoE), School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
    • 2Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Nonequilibrium Synthesis and Modulation of Condensed Matter, State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Shaanxi Province Key Laboratory of Quantum Information and Quantum Optoelectronic Devices, School of Physics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
    • 3Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
    • 4Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 201210, China
    • 5College of Optical Sciences, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
    • 6Department of Nuclear Physics, China Institute of Atomic Energy, P.O. Box 275(7), Beijing 102413, China

    • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
    • †Contact author: jianxing@xjtu.edu.cn
    • ‡Contact author: wenchaoyan@sjtu.edu.cn
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    Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 025001 – Published 14 January, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/92v4-bzp2

    Abstract

    Vortex γ photons carrying orbital angular momenta (OAM) hold great potential for various applications. However, their generation remains a great challenge. Here, we successfully generate sub-MeV vortex γ photons via all-optical inverse Compton scattering of relativistic electrons colliding with a subrelativistic Laguerre-Gaussian laser. In principle, directly measuring the OAM of γ photons is challenging due to their incoherence and extremely short wavelength. Therein, we put forward a novel method to determine the OAM properties by revealing the quantum opening angle of vortex γ photons, since vortex particles exhibit not only a spiral phase but also transverse momentum according to the quantum electrodynamics theory. Thus, γ photons carrying OAM manifest a much larger angular distribution than those without OAM, which has been clearly observed in our experiments. This angular expansion is considered as an overall effect lying beyond classical theory. Our method provides the first experimental evidence for detecting vortex γ photons and opens a new perspective for investigating OAM-induced quantum phenomena in broad fields.

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    Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 025001– Published 14 January, 2026
    • Received 17 March 2025
    • Accepted 24 December 2025
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