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Generation of proton beams from two-species targets irradiated by a femtosecond laser pulse of ultra-relativistic intensity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2017

J. Domański ,
J. Badziak  and
S. Jabłoński
J. Domański*
Affiliation:
Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion, Hery 23, 01-497 Warsaw, Poland
J. Badziak
Affiliation:
Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion, Hery 23, 01-497 Warsaw, Poland
S. Jabłoński
Affiliation:
Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion, Hery 23, 01-497 Warsaw, Poland
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: J. Domański, Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion, Hery 23, 01-497 Warsaw, Poland. E-mail: jaroslaw.domanski@ifpilm.pl
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Abstract

The paper presents results of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of ion beam acceleration at the interactions of a 130-fs laser pulse of intensity in the range 1021–1023 W/cm2, predicted for the Extreme Light Infrastructure lasers, with thin hydrocarbon (CH) or erbium hydride (ErH3) targets. A special attention is paid to the effect of the laser pulse intensity and polarization (linear, circular) on the proton energy spectrum, the proton beam spatial distribution and the proton pulse shape and intensity. It is shown that for the low laser intensities (~1021 W/cm2) considerably higher proton beam parameters (proton energies, beam intensities) are achieved for the ErH3 target for both polarizations and the effect of polarization on the beam parameters is significant (higher parameters are achieved for the linear polarization). However, for the highest, ultra-relativistic intensities (~1023 W/cm2) higher proton beam parameters are attained for the CH target and the effect of polarization on these parameters is relatively low. In this case, for both polarizations quasi-monoenergetic proton beams are generated from the CH target of the mean proton energy ~2 GeV and $dE_{\rm p} /\bar E_{\rm p} \approx 0.3$ for the linear polarization and $dE_{\rm p} /\bar E_{\rm p} \approx 0.2$ for the circular one. At the highest laser intensities also the proton pulse peak intensities are higher for the CH target and for both polarizations they reach values well above 1021 W/cm2. In the paper, the properties of proton beam generation indicated above are discussed in detail and a physical explanation of the observed effects is done.

Keywords

Laser accelerationLaser plasmaIonsParticle-in-cell simulations
Type
Research Article
Information
Laser and Particle Beams , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 286 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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