Laser Acceleration of Ion Bunches at the Front Surface of Overdense Plasmas
Abstract
The acceleration of ions in the interaction of high intensity laser pulses with overdense plasmas is investigated with particle-in-cell simulations. For circular polarization of the laser pulses, high-density ion bunches moving into the plasma are generated at the laser-plasma interaction surface. A simple analytical model accounts for the numerical observations and provides scaling laws for the ion bunch energy and generation time as a function of pulse intensity and plasma density.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- April 2005
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.165003
- arXiv:
- arXiv:physics/0411023
- Bibcode:
- 2005PhRvL..94p5003M
- Keywords:
-
- 52.38.Kd;
- 52.50.Jm;
- 52.65.Rr;
- Laser-plasma acceleration of electrons and ions;
- Plasma production and heating by laser beams;
- Particle-in-cell method;
- Physics - Plasma Physics
- E-Print:
- 4 pages, 5 figures