Neutrino generation by high field lasers

Generation of relativistic protons in high laser fields provides a source of muon neutrinos with fluxes of /spl sim/ 10/sup 19/ /spl nu//sub /spl mu// s/sup -1/ sr/sup -1/ and energies /spl sim/ 20 MeV. The source is proposed for neutrino oscillation experiments. This paper presents a new concept for a pulsed neutrino source: an Optically Driven Emitter of Neutrinos (ODEN). The generation of neutrinos concludes a chain of events, starting with electron acceleration in laser field, leading in turn to the emission of a proton beam in relativistic regime. The protons generate charged pions, which decay into muon neutrino pairs.