Relativistic Electron Streaming Instabilities Modulate Proton Beams Accelerated in Laser-Plasma Interactions

Göde, S.; Rödel, Christian; Zeil, Karl; Mishra, R.; Gauthier, M.; Brack, Florian‐Emanuel; Kluge, T.; MacDonald, M. J.; Metzkes, J.; Obst, L.; Rehwald, Martin; Ruyer, C.; Schlenvoigt, Hans-Peter; Schumaker, W.; Sommer, P.; Cowan, T. E.; Schramm, U.; Glenzer, S. H.; Fiúza, Frederico

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.118.194801

Cited by 84 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(53 reference statements)

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“…Until now a fundamental impediment of the ongoing research of UHI laser-solid interactions has been the limited experimental capability of diagnosing the basic processes during the laser interaction on the relevant scales that range from sub-femtosecond to hundreds of femtoseconds and from few nanometers to few hundred nanometers. Some of the most important physical processes are, for example, the generation of plasma oscillations [15] and plasma waves [16], electron transport and plasma * .kluge@hzdr.de heating [17,18], instability development [16,[19][20][21][22][23][24], and the generation of strong magnetic fields [17]. A fundamental process is the expansion of the irradiated plasma into vacuum [25][26][27] during the laser interaction, governing the surface dynamics and laser absorption both prior to and during the laser main pulse.For each application a correspondingly tailored surface structure can enhance laser absorption and interaction, electron acceleration, and hence all subsequent processes.…”

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confidence: 99%

Observation of Ultrafast Solid-Density Plasma Dynamics Using Femtosecond X-Ray Pulses from a Free-Electron Laser

Kluge¹,

Rödel²,

Metzkes-Ng³

et al. 2018

Phys. Rev. X

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The complex physics of the interaction between short pulse high intensity lasers and solids is so far hardly accessible by experiments. As a result of missing experimental capabilities to probe the complex electron dynamics and competing instabilities, this impedes the development of compact laser-based next generation secondary radiation sources, e.g. for tumor therapy [1,2], laboratory-astrophysics [3,4], and fusion [5]. At present, the fundamental plasma dynamics that occur at the nanometer and femtosecond scales during the laser-solid interaction can only be elucidated by simulations. Here we show experimentally that small angle X-ray scattering of femtosecond X-ray free-electron laser pulses facilitates new capabilities for direct in-situ characterization of intense short-pulse laser plasma interaction at solid density that allows simultaneous nanometer spatial and femtosecond temporal resolution, directly verifying numerical simulations of the electron density dynamics during the short pulse high intensity laser irradiation of a solid density target. For laser-driven grating targets, we measure the solid density plasma expansion and observe the generation of a transient grating structure in front of the pre-inscribed grating, due to plasma expansion, which is an hitherto unknown effect. We expect that our results will pave the way for novel time-resolved studies, guiding the development of future laser-driven particle and photon sources from solid targets.The solid density plasmas created in the interaction of an ultra-short, ultra-high intensity (UHI) laser pulse with a solid target are a source of femtosecond, highcharge electron[6] and ion bunches[7-10], extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation [11][12][13], and neutrons [14], making them promising candidates for future particle accelerators or radiation sources. Until now a fundamental impediment of the ongoing research of UHI laser-solid interactions has been the limited experimental capability of diagnosing the basic processes during the laser interaction on the relevant scales that range from sub-femtosecond to hundreds of femtoseconds and from few nanometers to few hundred nanometers. Some of the most important physical processes are, for example, the generation of plasma oscillations [15] and plasma waves [16], electron transport and plasma * .kluge@hzdr.de heating [17,18], instability development [16,[19][20][21][22][23][24], and the generation of strong magnetic fields [17]. A fundamental process is the expansion of the irradiated plasma into vacuum [25][26][27] during the laser interaction, governing the surface dynamics and laser absorption both prior to and during the laser main pulse.For each application a correspondingly tailored surface structure can enhance laser absorption and interaction, electron acceleration, and hence all subsequent processes. In fact, it has been shown that a preplasma density gradient, e.g. generated by laser intensity prior to the main pulse, strongly affects absorption[28] and the generation of secondary radiation such...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Observation of Ultrafast Solid-Density Plasma Dynamics Using Femtosecond X-Ray Pulses from a Free-Electron Laser

Kluge¹,

Rödel²,

Metzkes-Ng³

et al. 2018

Phys. Rev. X

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“…The filamented electron beam can drive strong return currents and generate filamentary magnetic field structures which deflect protons away from otherwise uniform trajectories. In addition, the presence of a low density preformed plasma on the rear surface of the target in advance of the peak of the laser pulse has been shown to enhance Weibel-like instability formation that can lead to strong modulations in the accelerated proton beam [45,46]. Even without filamentation, recent work by Nakatsutsumi et al using higher intensities and thinner targets demonstrated that strong azimuthal magnetic fields on the rear surface can inhibit proton acceleration and impact the beam quality [47].…”

Section: Simulation Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proton beam emittance growth in multipicosecond laser-solid interactions

et al. 2019

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High intensity laser-solid interactions can accelerate high energy, low emittance proton beams via the target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) mechanism. Such beams are useful for a number of applications, including time-resolved proton radiography for basic plasma and high energy density physics studies. In experiments using the OMEGA EP laser system, we perform the first measurements of TNSA proton beams generated by up to 100 ps, kilojoule-class laser pulses with relativistic intensities. By systematically varying the laser pulse duration, we measure degradation of the accelerated proton beam quality as the pulse length increases. Two dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and simple scaling arguments suggest that ion motion during the rise time of the longer pulses leads to extended preformed plasma expansion from the rear target surface and strong filamentary field structures which can deflect ions away from uniform trajectories and therefore lead to large emittance growth.

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“…In the latter case, copious numbers of fast electrons are driven by the laser pulse into the bulk plasma, where they fragment into small-scale magnetic filaments. The scatterings undergone by the fast electrons can lead to large angular divergence, and hence hamper applications involving high electron flux densities, such as the fast ignition scheme [39,40] or ion acceleration [41,42]. On the other hand, the CFI can be purposefully triggered in high-energy laser-driven plasma collisions [43][44][45][46] or relativistic-intensity laser-plasma interactions [47][48][49][50][51], designed as testbeds for astrophysical shock models.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stability analysis of a periodic system of relativistic current filaments

2018

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The nonlinear evolution of current filaments generated by the Weibel-type filamentation instability is a topic of prime interest in space and laboratory plasma physics. In this paper, we investigate the stability of a stationary periodic chain of nonlinear current filaments in counterstreaming pair plasmas. We make use of a relativistic four-fluid model and apply the Floquet theory to compute the two-dimensional unstable eigenmodes of the spatially periodic system. We examine three different cases, characterized by various levels of nonlinearity and asymmetry between the plasma streams: a weakly nonlinear symmetric system, prone to purely transverse merging modes; a strongly nonlinear symmetric system, dominated by coherent drift-kink modes whose transverse periodicity is equal to, or an integer fraction of the unperturbed filaments; a moderately nonlinear asymmetric system, subject to a mix of kink and bunching-type perturbations. The growth rates and profiles of the numerically computed eigenmodes agree with particle-in-cell simulation results. In addition, we derive an analytic criterion for the transition between dominant filament-merging and drift-kink instabilites in symmetric two-beam systems.

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Relativistic Electron Streaming Instabilities Modulate Proton Beams Accelerated in Laser-Plasma Interactions

Cited by 84 publications

References 42 publications

Observation of Ultrafast Solid-Density Plasma Dynamics Using Femtosecond X-Ray Pulses from a Free-Electron Laser

Observation of Ultrafast Solid-Density Plasma Dynamics Using Femtosecond X-Ray Pulses from a Free-Electron Laser

Proton beam emittance growth in multipicosecond laser-solid interactions

Stability analysis of a periodic system of relativistic current filaments

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