Bulanov, Stepan S. and Bychenkov, Valery Yu. and Chvykov, Vladimir and Kalinchenko, Galina and Litzenberg, Dale William and Matsuoka, Takeshi and Thomas, Alexander G. R. and Willingale, Louise and Yanovsky, Victor and Krushelnick, Karl and Maksimchuk, Anatoly (2010) Generation of GeV protons from 1 PW laser interaction with near critical density targets. Physics of Plasmas, 17 (4): 043105. ISSN 1070-664X
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
The propagation of ultraintense laser pulses through matter is connected with the generation of strong moving magnetic fields in the propagation channel as well as the formation of a thin ion filament along the axis of the channel. Upon exiting the plasma the magnetic field displaces the electrons at the back of the target, generating a quasistatic electric field that accelerates and collimates ions from the filament. Two dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that a 1 PW laser pulse tightly focused on a near-critical density target is able to accelerate protons up to an energy of 1.3 GeV. Scaling laws and optimal conditions for proton acceleration are established considering the energy depletion of the laser pulse.