We show that monoenergetic ion beams can be accelerated by moderate Mach number collisionless, electrostatic shocks propagating in a long scale-length exponentially decaying plasma profile.Strong plasma heating and density steepening produced by an intense laser pulse near the critical density can launch such shocks that propagate in the extended plasma at high velocities. The generation of a monoenergetic ion beam is possible due to the small and constant sheath electric field associated with the slowly decreasing density profile. The conditions for the acceleration of high-quality, energetic ion beams are identified through theory and multidimensional particle-incell simulations. The scaling of the ion energy with laser intensity shows that it is possible to generate ∼ 200 MeV proton beams with state-of-the-art 100 TW class laser systems.

Multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations are used to study the generation of electrostatic shocks in plasma and the reflection of background ions to produce high-quality and high-energy ion beams. Electrostatic shocks are driven by the interaction of two plasmas with different density and/or relative drift velocity. The energy and number of ions reflected by the shock increase with increasing density ratio and relative drift velocity between the two interacting plasmas. It is shown that the interaction of intense lasers with tailored near-critical density plasmas allows for the efficient heating of the plasma electrons and steepening of the plasma profile at the critical density interface, leading to the generation of high-velocity shock structures and high-energy ion beams. Our results indicate that high-quality 200 MeV shock-accelerated ion beams required for medical applications may be obtained with current laser systems.

We present results of a two-dimensional fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulation in order to shed light on the role of whistler waves in the scattering of strahl electrons and in the heat-flux regulation in the solar wind. We model the electron velocity distribution function as initially composed of core and strahl populations as typically encountered in the near-Sun solar wind as observed by Parker Solar Probe. We demonstrate that, as a consequence of the evolution of the electron velocity distribution function (VDF), two branches of the whistler heat-flux instability can be excited, which can drive whistler waves propagating in the direction oblique or parallel to the background magnetic field. First, oblique whistler waves induce pitch-angle scattering of strahl electrons, toward higher perpendicular velocities. This leads to the broadening of the strahl pitch-angle distribution and hence to the formation of a halo-like population at the expense of the strahl. Later on, the electron VDF experiences the effect of parallel whistler waves, which contributes to the redistribution of the particles scattered in the perpendicular direction into a more symmetric halo, in agreement with observations. Simulation results show a remarkable agreement with the linear theory of the oblique whistler heat-flux instability. The process is accompanied by a significant decrease of the heat flux carried by the strahl population.