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Enhanced laser-driven proton acceleration with gas–foil targets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2020

Dan Levy Open the ORCID record for Dan Levy [Opens in a new window] ,
X. Davoine ,
A. Debayle ,
L. Gremillet  and
V. Malka Open the ORCID record for V. Malka [Opens in a new window]
Dan Levy*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot76100, Israel Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, École Polytechnique-ENSTA- CNRS, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91761Palaiseau Cedex, France
X. Davoine
Affiliation:
Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, LMCE, 91680Bruyères-le-Châtel, France
A. Debayle
Affiliation:
Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, LMCE, 91680Bruyères-le-Châtel, France
L. Gremillet
Affiliation:
Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, LMCE, 91680Bruyères-le-Châtel, France
V. Malka
Affiliation:
Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot76100, Israel Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, École Polytechnique-ENSTA- CNRS, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91761Palaiseau Cedex, France
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

We study numerically the mechanisms of proton acceleration in gas–foil targets driven by an ultraintense femtosecond laser pulse. The target consists of a near-critical-density hydrogen gas layer of a few tens of microns attached to a $2\ \mathrm {\mu }$m-thick solid carbon foil with a contaminant thin proton layer at its back side. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that, at optimal gas density, the maximum energy of the contaminant protons is increased by a factor of $\sim$4 compared with a single foil target. This improvement originates from the near-complete laser absorption into relativistic electrons in the gas. Several energetic electron populations are identified, and their respective effect on the proton acceleration is quantified by computing the electrostatic fields that they generate at the protons’ positions. While each of those electron groups is found to contribute substantially to the overall accelerating field, the dominant one is the relativistic thermal bulk that results from the nonlinear wakefield excited in the gas, as analysed recently by Debayle et al. (New J. Phys., vol. 19, 2017, 123013). Our analysis also reveals the important role of the neighbouring ions in the acceleration of the fastest protons, and the onset of multidimensional effects caused by the time-increasing curvature of the proton layer.

Keywords

plasma simulationintense particle beams
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 86 , Issue 6 , December 2020 , 905860608
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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