Related papers: Dense monoenergetic proton beams from chirped lase…
We investigate the interaction between a superintense laser pulse and a nitrogen plasma with densities exceeding $10^{19}\,$cm$^{-3}$, using particle-in-cell simulations. Such configurations have recently demonstrated the capability to…
A model for laser light absorption in electron-positron plasmas self-consistently created via QED cascades is described. The laser energy is mainly absorbed due to hard photon emission via nonlinear Compton scattering. The degree of…
The extreme electric fields created in high-intensity laser-plasma interactions could generate energetic ions far more compactly than traditional accelerators. Despite this promise, laser-plasma accelerators have remained stagnant at…
Longitudinal ion acceleration from high-intensity (I ~ 10^20 Wcm^-2) laser interactions with helium gas jet targets (n_e ~ 0.04 n_c) have been observed. The ion beam has a maximum energy for He^2+ of approximately 40 MeV and was directional…
We demonstrate laser-plasma acceleration of high charge electron beams to the ~10 MeV scale using ultrashort laser pulses with as little energy as 10 mJ. This result is made possible by an extremely dense and thin hydrogen gas jet. Total…
Electrons at the surface of a plasma that is irradiated by a laser with intensity in excess of $10^{23}~\mathrm{W}\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$ are accelerated so strongly that they emit bursts of synchrotron radiation. Although the combination of high…
High-energy spin-polarized electron, positron, and $\gamma$-photon beams have many significant applications in the study of material properties, nuclear structure, particle physics, and high-energy astrophysics. Thus,efficient production of…
Dense positrons are shown to be effectively generated from laser-solid interactions in the strong-field quantum electrodynamics (QED) regime. Whether these positrons are polarized has not yet been reported, limiting their potential…
A scheme for controlling the direction of energetic proton beam driven by intense laser pulse is proposed. Simulations show that a precisely directed and collimated proton bunch can be produced by a sub-picosecond laser pulse interacting…
Active energy compression scheme is presently being investigated for future laser-plasma accelerators. This method enables generating laser-plasma accelerator electron beams with a small, $\sim 10^{-5}$, relative slice energy spread. When…
We investigate by particle-in-cell simulations in two and three dimensions the laser-plasma interaction and the proton acceleration in multilayer targets where a low density "near-critical" layer of a few micron thickness is added on the…
Since the invention of chirped pulse amplification, which was recognized by a Nobel prize in physics in 2018, there has been a continuing increase in available laser intensity. Combined with advances in our understanding of the kinetics of…
A zeptosecond multi--MeV laser pulse may either excite a "plasma" of strongly interacting nucleons or a collective mode. We derive the conditions on laser energy and photon number such that either of these scenarios is realized. We use the…
The advent of high-intensity pulsed laser technology enables the generation of extreme states of matter under conditions that are far from thermal equilibrium. This in turn could enable different approaches to generating energy from nuclear…
A comprehensive theory is proposed to describe the propagation and absorption of ultra-intense, short laser pulse through the under-dense plasma. The kinetic aspects of plasma are fully incorporated using extensive particle-in-cell (PIC)…
A novel radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) regime of heavy ion beams from laser-irradiated ultrathin foils is proposed by self-consistently taking into account the ionization dynamics. In this regime, the laser intensity is required to…
Three-dimensional (3D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are used to investigate the interaction of ultrahigh intensity lasers ($> 10^{20}$ W/cm$^{-2}$) with matter at overcritical densities. Intense laser pulses are shown to penetrate up…
We show that when a solid plasma foil with a density gradient on the front surface is irradiated by an intense laser pulse at a grazing angle, around 80 degrees, a relativistic electron vortex is excited in the near-critical-density layer…
We consider the simultaneous propagation of a pair of Raman-resonant, frequency-modulated (chirped) laser pulses in an optically thick medium, modeled by an ensemble of $\Lambda$-atoms. A self-organization ('matching`) effect is shown for…
We show that monoenergetic ion beams can be accelerated by moderate Mach number collisionless, electrostatic shocks propagating in a long scale-length exponentially decaying plasma profile. Strong plasma heating and density steepening…