Spectrally resolved scattering of ultrafast K-alpha x-rays has provided experimental validation of the modeling of the compression and heating of shocked matter. The elastic scattering component has characterized the evolution and coalescence of two shocks launched by a nanosecond laser pulse into lithium hydride with an unprecedented temporal resolution of 10 picoseconds. At shock coalescence, we observed rapid heating to temperatures of 25,000 kelvin when the scattering spectra show the collective plasmon oscillations that indicate the transition to the dense metallic plasma state. The plasmon frequency determines the material compression, which is found to be a factor of 3, thereby reaching conditions in the laboratory relevant for studying the physics of planetary formation.

A fully kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) model is used to self-consistently determine the steady-state potential profile in a collisionless plasma that contacts a floating, absorbing boundary. To balance the flow of particles to the wall, a distributed source region is used to inject particles into the one-dimensional system. The effect of the particle source distribution function on the source region and collector sheath potential drops, and particle velocity distributions is investigated. The ion source functions proposed by Emmert et al. [Phys. Fluids 23, 803 (1980)] and Bissell and Johnson [Phys. Fluids 30, 779 (1987)] (and various combinations of these) are used for the injection of both ions and electrons. The values of the potential drops obtained from the PIC simulations are compared to those from the theories of Emmert et al., Bissell and Johnson, and Scheuer and Emmert [Phys. Fluids 31, 3645 (1988)], all of which assume that the electron density is related to the plasma potential via the Boltzmann relation. The values of the source region and total potential drop are found to depend on the choice of the electron source function, as well as the ion source function. The question of an infinite electric field at the plasma–sheath interface, which arises in the analyses of Bissell and Johnson and Scheuer and Emmert, is also addressed.

Au foils were irradiated with a 100-TW, 100-fs laser at intensities greater than 10(20) W/cm2 producing proton beams with a total yield of approximately 10(11) and maximum proton energy of >9 MeV. Removing contamination from the back surface of Au foils with an Ar-ion sputter gun reduced the total yield of accelerated protons to less than 1% of the yield observed without removing contamination. Removing contamination from the front surface (laser-interaction side) of the target had no observable effect on the proton beam. We present a one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation that models the experiment. Both experimental and simulation results are consistent with the back-surface acceleration mechanism described in the text.

A beam of high energy ions and protons is observed from targets irradiated with intensities up to 5×1019 W/cm2. Maximum proton energy is shown to strongly correlate with laser-irradiance on target. Energy spectra from a magnetic spectrometer show a plateau region near the maximum energy cutoff and modulations in the spectrum at approximately 65% of the cutoff energy. Presented two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations suggest that modulations in the proton spectrum are caused by the presence of multiple heavy-ion species in the expanding plasma.