Laser and Particle Beams 

About: Laser and Particle Beams is an academic journal published by Cambridge University Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Laser & Plasma. It has an ISSN identifier of 0263-0346. It is also open access. Over the lifetime, 2618 publications have been published receiving 32613 citations.

Numerical simulation of mixing by Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities

Abstract: Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) and Richtmyer–Meshkov (RM) instabilities at the pusher–fuel interface in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) targets may significantly degrade thermonuclear burn. Present-day supercomputers may be used to understand the fundamental instability mechanisms and to model the effect of the ensuing mixing on the performance of the ICF target. Direct three-dimensional numerical simulation is used to investigate turbulent mixing due to RT and RM instability in simple situations. A two-dimensional turbulence model is used to assess the effect of small-scale turbulent mixing in the axisymmetric implosion of an idealized ICF target.

GeV laser ion acceleration from ultrathin targets: The laser break-out afterburner

Abstract: A new laser-driven ion acceleration mechanism has been identified using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. This mechanism allows ion acceleration to GeV energies at vastly reduced laser intensities compared with earlier acceleration schemes. The new mechanism, dubbed “Laser Break-out Afterburner” (BOA), enables the acceleration of carbon ions to greater than 2 GeV energy at a laser intensity of only 1021 W/cm2, an intensity that has been realized in existing laser systems. Other techniques for achieving these energies in the literature rely upon intensities of 1024 W/cm2 or above, i.e., 2–3 orders of magnitude higher than any laser intensity that has been demonstrated to date. Also, the BOA mechanism attains higher energy and efficiency than target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA), where the scaling laws predict carbon energies of 50 MeV/u for identical laser conditions. In the early stages of the BOA, the carbon ions accelerate as a quasi-monoenergetic bunch with median energy higher than that realized recently experimentally.

Corpuscular diagnostics and processing methods applied in investigations of laser-produced plasma as a source of highly ionized ions

Abstract: This paper presents a set of complementary corpuscular diagnostics applied in experiments for investigation of laser-produced plasma as a source of ions. The measuring possibilities and methods for processing experimental data of a cylindrical electrostatic ion energy analyzer, a Thomson parabola ion analyzer, various types of electrostatic probes, a detector of neutral atom fluxes, as well as methods for visualization of ion emission areas are discussed. Special attention was focused on the ion-induced secondary electron emission problem and its influence on the accuracy of the measurements.

Present and future perspectives for high energy density physics with intense heavy ion and laser beams

Abstract: Intense heavy ion beams from the Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung ~GSI, Darmstadt, Germany! accelerator facilities, together with two high energy laser systems: petawatt high energy laser for ion experiments ~PHELIX! and nanosecond high energy laser for ion experiments ~NHELIX! are a unique combination to facilitate pioneering beam-plasma interaction experiments, to generate and probe high-energy-density ~HED! matter and to address basic physics issues associated with heavy ion driven inertial confinement fusion. In one class of experiments, the laser will be used to generate plasma and the ion beam will be used to study the energy loss of energetic ions in ionized matter, and to probe the physical state of the laser-generated plasma. In another class of experiments, the intense heavy ion beam will be employed to create a sample of HED matter and the laser beam, together with other diagnostic tools, will be used to explore the properties of these exotic states of matter. The existing heavy ion synchrotron facility, SIS18, deliver an intense uranium beam that deposit about 1 kJ0g specific energy in solid matter. Using this beam, experiments have recently been performed where solid lead foils had been heated and a brightness temperature on the order of 5000 K was measured, using a fast multi-channel pyrometer that has been developed jointly by GSI and IPCP Chernogolovka. It is expected that the future heavy ion facility, facility for antiprotons and ion research ~FAIR! will provide compressed beam pulses with an intensity that exceeds the current beam intensities by three orders of magnitude. This will open up the possibility to explore the thermophysical and transport properties of HED matter in a regime that is very difficult to access using the traditional methods of shock compression. Beam plasma interaction experiments using dense plasmas with a G-parameter between 0.5 and 1.5 have also been carried out. This dense Ar-plasma was generated by explosively driven shockwaves and showed enhanced energy loss for Xe and Ar ions in the energy range between 5.9 to 11.4 MeV.