Quasi-monoenergetic ion acceleration and neutron generation from laser-driven transverse collisionless shocks

Experiments using the OMEGA EP laser system were performed to study collisionless shock acceleration of ions driven by the interaction of a relativistically intense laser pulse with underdense plasma. The energy spectrum of accelerated ions in the direction transverse to laser propagation is measure...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physics of plasmas 2024-10, Vol.31 (10)
Main Authors: Kordell, P., Zulick, C., Hussein, A. E., Arefiev, A. V., Batson, T., Cobble, J., Glebov, V., Haberberger, D., Stoeckl, C., Nilson, P. M., Krushelnick, K., Willingale, L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Deuterium
Energy spectra
Pulse propagation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Experiments using the OMEGA EP laser system were performed to study collisionless shock acceleration of ions driven by the interaction of a relativistically intense laser pulse with underdense plasma. The energy spectrum of accelerated ions in the direction transverse to laser propagation is measured to have several narrow-band peaks which are quasi-monoenergetic with a typical energy bandwidth of 3%. In deuterium plasmas, these ions generate a significant number of fast fusion neutrons. Particle-in-cell simulations confirm that these ions were accelerated by the interaction of transverse shocks and that the appearance of quasi-monoenergetic spectral features depends on the growth of an ion-electron two-stream instability during the interaction.
ISSN:1070-664X
1089-7674
DOI:10.1063/5.0223622