AI Article Synopsis
- The study focused on ion acceleration caused by an electrostatic shock in an exploded target when exposed to an ultrashort, circularly polarized laser pulse, using particle-in-cell simulations.
- It was found that the laser's effect, through a process called relativistic transparency, quickly heated the electron plasma, helping to create a high-speed electrostatic shock.
- This new shock ion acceleration mechanism is more efficient than traditional methods when using less energy from laser systems at a wavelength of about 1μm.
Article Abstract
We investigated ion acceleration by an electrostatic shock in an exploded target irradiated by an ultrashort, circularly polarized laser pulse by means of one- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We discovered that the laser field penetrating via relativistic transparency (RT) rapidly heated the upstream electron plasma to enable the formation of a high-speed electrostatic shock. Owing to the RT-based rapid heating and the fast compression of the initial density spike by a circularly polarized pulse, a new regime of the shock ion acceleration driven by an ultrashort (20-40 fs), moderately intense (1-1.4 PW) laser pulse is envisaged. This regime enables more efficient shock ion acceleration under a limited total pulse energy than a linearly polarized pulse with crystal laser systems of λ∼1μm.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.92.043102 | DOI Listing |
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