Quenching of the nonlocal electron heat transport by large external magnetic fields in a laser-produced plasma measured with imaging thomson scattering.

We present a direct measurement of the quenching of nonlocal heat transport in a laser-produced plasma by applying large external magnetic fields (>10 T). The temporally resolved Thomson-scattering measurements of the electron temperature profile show that the heat front propagation transverse to a high-power laser beam is slowed resulting in extremely strong local heating. We find agreement with hydrodynamic modeling when including a magnetic field model that self-consistently evolves the fields in the plasma.

Direct observation of the saturation of stimulated Brillouin scattering by ion-trapping-induced frequency shifts.

We report the first measurement of the saturation of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) by an ion-trapping-induced frequency shift, which was achieved by directly measuring the amplitude and absolute frequency of SBS-driven ion-acoustic waves (IAW). A frequency shift of up to 30% and a simultaneous saturation of driven IAW and SBS reflectivity were observed. The scaling of the frequency shift with the IAW amplitude compares well with theoretical calculations.

Intense high-energy proton beams from Petawatt-laser irradiation of solids.

An intense collimated beam of high-energy protons is emitted normal to the rear surface of thin solid targets irradiated at 1 PW power and peak intensity 3x10(20) W cm(-2). Up to 48 J ( 12%) of the laser energy is transferred to 2x10(13) protons of energy >10 MeV. The energy spectrum exhibits a sharp high-energy cutoff as high as 58 MeV on the axis of the beam which decreases in energy with increasing off axis angle.