Weibel-Induced Filamentation during an Ultrafast Laser-Driven Plasma Expansion

Quinn, K.; Romagnani, L.; Ramakrishna, B.; Sarri, Gianluca; Dieckmann, Mark E; Wilson, Puthenparampil; Fuchs, Julien; Lancia, L.; Pipahl, A.; Toncian, T.; Willi, O.; Clarke, R. J.; Notley, M.; Macchi, Andrea; Borghesi, M.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.108.135001

Cited by 58 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Magnetic fields can be generated via the Weibel instability 25 in spatially localized ion density accumulations such as shocks 22 and rarefaction waves. 23,24 The magnetic field structures observed at later times expanded into the upstream region and they were not showing spatial oscillations on an electron skin depth-scale, which are typical for the magnetic fields driven by the Weibel instability. The magnetic fields were coherent over tens of electron skin depths and the area they covered was limited by the dimensions of the simulation box and by the simulation time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Shocks in unmagnetized plasma with a shear flow: Stability and magnetic field generation

et al. 2015

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A pair of curved shocks in a collisionless plasma is examined with a two-dimensional particle-incell (PIC) simulation. The shocks are created by the collision of two electron-ion clouds at a speed that exceeds everywhere the threshold speed for shock formation. A variation of the collision speed along the initially planar collision boundary, which is comparable to the ion acoustic speed, yields a curvature of the shock that increases with time. The spatially varying Mach number of the shocks results in a variation of the downstream density in the direction along the shock boundary. This variation is eventually equilibrated by the thermal diffusion of ions. The pair of shocks is stable for tens of inverse ion plasma frequencies. The angle between the mean flow velocity vector of the inflowing upstream plasma and the shock's electrostatic field increases steadily during this time. The disalignment of both vectors gives rise to a rotational electron flow, which yields the growth of magnetic field patches that are coherent over tens of electron skin depths.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Shocks in unmagnetized plasma with a shear flow: Stability and magnetic field generation

et al. 2015

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The expected maximum energy using the long f-number FOA would be on the order of [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] MeV. This is close to the threshold energy required to penetrate the C-Pops filters.…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This approach has been shown to be particularly suited to the investigation of the dynamics of transient fields (i.e. varying on ps timescales) [26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. EM-field distributions can cause proton density modulations and trajectory intersections, which appear as caustics.…”

Section: Laser-driven Proton Radiographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Z-petawatt driven ion beam radiography development.

Schollmeier¹,

Geißel²,

Rambo³

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Laser-driven proton radiography provides electromagnetic field mapping with high spatiotemporal resolution, and has been applied to many laser-driven High Energy Density Physics (HEDP) experiments. Our report addresses key questions about the feasibility of ion radiography at the Z-Accelerator ("Z"), concerning laser configuration, hardware, and radiation background. Charged particle tracking revealed that radiography at Z requires GeV scale protons, which is out of reach for existing and near-future laser systems. However, it might be possible to perform proton deflectometry to detect magnetic flux compression in the fringe field region of a magnetized liner inertial fusion experiment. Experiments with the Z-Petawatt laser to enhance proton yield and energy showed an unexpected scaling with target thickness. Full-scale, 3D radiation-hydrodynamics simulations, coupled to fully explicit and kinetic 2D particle-in-cell simulations running for over 10 ps, explain the scaling by a complex interplay of laser prepulse, preplasma, and ps-scale temporal rising edge of the laser.4

show abstract

“…As implemented over the past decade, the proton radiography technique works by passing a low-density point-source-like proton beam through a HED plasma [182,20,133,19,178,27,200,208,168]. The proton beam is typically generated using the target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) process in which an ultraintense short pulse laser (> 10 18 W cm 2 ) irradiates a solid target, producing a polychromatic proton source with useful energies ranging from ⇠ 5 60 MeV [216].…”

Section: Ultrafast Imaging Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling of Intense Laser Driven High Energy Density Plasmas

Levy¹

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Illuminating matter with petawatt (one quadrillion watts) laser light creates extreme states of plasmas with temperatures exceeding ten million degrees Celsius and pressures exceeding one billion earth atmospheres. These high energy density conditions are driven at the microscopic scale by dense currents of relativistic electrons, oscillating violently in the intense laser fields, as well as the plasma processes arising when these particles lose phase coherence and are injected into bulk target material. Suitably harnessed, this setup opens the way to compact relativistic particle accelerators, laser fusion energy sources, laboratory astrophysics, ultrafast imaging systems, proton cancer therapies, anti-matter creation, high-energy radiation sources and intense high harmonic generation. In this thesis, theoretical models of the absorption of high power laser light by matter are derived, applications of these models are investigated, and simulation tools supporting the diagnosis and implementation of these applications are developed.In particular, an advanced, relativistically-correct theoretical model of petawatt laser absorption by optically-thick targets is developed, accounting for both ion and electron beam aspects of the interaction. Predictions of the model for the energetic properties of these beams, as well as the dynamical motion of the laser-matter interface, are elucidated. Results from high resolution, relativistic, kinetic particle-in-cell simulations using the LSP code are shown to be in good agreement with the model. intensity I l and wavelength l . These results are shown to bound several dozens of published experimental and simulation data points, underlining the usefulness of the iii model. These results are extended to include e↵ects related to heterogeneous plasmas, including relativistically-underdense plasmas relevant to 'pre-plasma' situations, and realistic laser spatio-temporal profiles. Our dynamic considerations of absorption processes are then extended to the 10-petawatt scale. In a manner that could support reaching the QED-plasma regime, a mechanism of focusing high power laser light to higher intensities is elucidated. Supporting the measurement and validation of these models, the development of a new simulation tool for understanding high energy density plasmas, based on the proton radiography technique, is detailed. AcknowledgementsOver the past 5 1 / 2 years it has often seemed that pursuit of graduate studies has formed an exercise in the stewardship of resources entrusted to me by advisors, mentors, collaborators and others. In endeavors bearing fruit, my stewardship of these resources has seemed adequate. In the totality of outcomes, to these people I wish to express my warmest and deepest gratitude. At Livermore I am particularly grateful to Tony Link for interesting and useful discussions on intense laser-plasma interactions and on the LSP code. I also wish to thank my colleagues

show abstract

Weibel-Induced Filamentation during an Ultrafast Laser-Driven Plasma Expansion

Cited by 58 publications

References 17 publications

Shocks in unmagnetized plasma with a shear flow: Stability and magnetic field generation

Shocks in unmagnetized plasma with a shear flow: Stability and magnetic field generation

Z-petawatt driven ion beam radiography development.

Modeling of Intense Laser Driven High Energy Density Plasmas

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About