Speaker
Evgeny Gelfer
Description
See the full Abstract at http://ocs.ciemat.es/EPS2018ABS/pdf/P4.2035.pdf
Radiation friction induced enhancement of laser-driven longitudinal fields
for pushing the ion acceleration limit
E.G. Gelfer1,2 , A.M. Fedotov2 , S. Weber1
1 ELI Beamlines, Institute of Physics of the ASCR, Dolni Brezany, Czech Republic
2 National Research Nuclear University “MEPhI”, Moscow, Russia
Due to the construction of high power laser facilities, ELI Beamlines [1] and alike, a pressing
challenge is the search for novel regimes of laser-plasma interactions at the next intensity levels,
in particular uncovering the role of radiation friction [2]. We consider the generation of longi-
tudinal waves due to the propagation of a strong laser pulse through an underdense plasmas
with account for radiation friction. Our goal is an analytical model of the process capable for
estimating and optimizing the parameters of the wave [3]. In particular, we prove that both the
amplitude and the period of the generated waves are essentially enhanced by radiation friction
under the condition
!2/3 5/6 1/3
I n 1/6 t λ
pulse
· · · & 1.
1022 W/cm2 1019 cm−3 100 fs 1 µm
Our findings are confirmed by 1D and 2D PIC simulations. The resulting charge separation
field can be so high that ions gain relativistic energies, hence the discovered effect can be ap-
plied to laser-plasma acceleration. We also demonstrate that radiation friction notably enhances
longitudinal field generation under the conditions realizable at ELI Beamlines [1], see Fig. 1.
Figure 1: 2D simulation of the longitudinal field distributions created by a tightly focused 10
PW laser pulse of FWHM duration t pulse = 150 fs, propagating in a plasma (a) with and (b)
without friction.
References
[1] http://www.eli-beams.eu.
[2] A. Di Piazza, C. Muller, K.Z. Hatsagortsyan, and C.H. Keitel, Rev. Mod. Phys. 84, 1177 (2012).
[3] E.G. Gelfer, N.V. Elkina and A.M. Fedotov, arXiv:1710.09253 (2017); E.G. Gelfer, A.M. Fedotov and S.
Weber, arXiv:1801.03795 (2018).
