Optimum laser parameters for 1D radiation pressure acceleration. (30th April 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schmidt, Peter; Boine-Frankenheim, Oliver; Mulser, Peter
• Is Part Of: Laser and particle beams. Volume 33:Number 3(2015)
• Page Start: 387
• Page End: 396
• Publication Date: 2015-04-30
• Subjects: Laser beams -- Periodicals; Particle beams -- Periodicals; 535.5
• DOI: 10.1017/S0263034615000336
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-0346

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="normal"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>Laser ion acceleration (Wilks <italic>et al</italic>., 2001; Passoni <italic>et al</italic>., 2010) has become an interesting field of research in the past years. Several experiments, such as LIGHT (Schollmeier <italic>et al</italic>., 2008; Bagnoud <italic>et al</italic>., 2010; Busold <italic>et al</italic>., 2013; 2014<italic>a</italic>; 2014<italic>b</italic>) are performed worldwide. High intense, pulsed laser beams are used to generate and accelerate a plasma. For higher laser intensities (>10<sup>21</sup> W cm<sup>−1</sup>), simulations (Esirkepov <italic>et al</italic>., 2004; Macchi <italic>et al</italic>., 2005; 2009; 2010; Robinson <italic>et al</italic>., 2008; Rykovanov <italic>et al</italic>., 2008; Henig <italic>et al</italic>., 2009; Schlegel <italic>et al</italic>., 2009; Shoucri <italic>et al</italic>., 2011; 2013; 2014; Kar <italic>et al</italic>., 2012; Korzhimanov <italic>et al</italic>., 2012; Shoucri, 2012) have revealed a new acceleration mechanism: The Radiation Pressure Acceleration. The entire foil target is accelerated by the radiation pressure of the laser pulse. Ideally, a sharp peak spectrum is generated, with energies up to GeV and nearly solid body density. This work faces on a detailed analysis of the acceleration mechanism in order to develop the optimum laser- and target parameters for the process. The analysis is supported by one-dimensional PIC simulations, using the commercial code VSim<sup>©</sup> Tech-X (2015).</p> </abstract>