Effect of electron heating on self-induced transparency in relativistic intensity laser-plasma interaction

Abstract

The effective increase of the critical density associated with the interaction of relativistically intense laser pulses with overcritical plasmas, known as self-induced transparency, is revisited for the case of circular polarization. A comparison of particle-in-cell simulations to the predictions of a relativistic cold-fluid model for the transparency threshold demonstrates that kinetic effects, such as electron heating, can lead to a substantial increase of the effective critical density compared to cold-fluid theory. These results are interpreted by a study of separatrices in the single-electron phase space corresponding to dynamics in the stationary fields predicted by the cold-fluid model. It is shown that perturbations due to electron heating exceeding a certain finite threshold can force electrons to escape into the vacuum, leading to laser pulse propagation. The modification of the transparency threshold is linked to the temporal pulse profile, through its effect on electron heating.

13 pages, 12 figures; fixed some typos and improved discussion of review material

References in corpus (5)

• Radiation Pressure Acceleration of Thin Foils with Circularly Polarized Laser Pulses
• "Light Sail" Acceleration Revisited
• Hole boring in a DT pellet and fast ion ignition with ultra-intense laser pulses
• Relativistic Self-Induced Transparency Effect During Ultraintense Laser Interaction with Overdense Plasmas: Why It Occurs and Its Use for Ultrashort Electron Bunch Generation
• Energy dispersion in radiation pressure accelerated ion beams

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Synchronized ion acceleration by ultraintense slow light
• Kinetic and finite ion mass effects on the transition to relativistic self-induced transparency in laser-driven ion acceleration
• Pair plasma cushions in the hole-boring scenario
• Electromagnetic wave transparency of X mode in strongly magnetized plasma
• Stimulated Raman scattering in the relativistic regime in near-critical plasmas
• Relativistic Vlasov-Maxwell modelling using finite volumes and adaptive mesh refinement
• Theory and simulations of radiation friction induced enhancement of laser-driven longitudinal fields
• The breather like penetration of the ultra-short linearly polarized laser into over-dense plasmas
• Electromagnetically Induced Transparency in Strongly Relativistic Regime
• Modeling ultrafast shadowgraphy in laser-plasma interaction experiments
• Generation of synchronized high-intensity x-rays and mid-infrared pulses by Doppler-shifting of relativistically intense radiation from near-critical-density plasmas
• Birefringence in thermally anisotropic relativistic plasmas and its impact on laser-plasma interactions
• Absorption and opacity threshold for a thin foil in a strong circularly polarized laser field
• Key parameters for surface plasma wave excitation in the ultra-high intensity regime
• Ion acceleration 'via' relativistic self induced transparency in subwavelength target
• Controlled transition to different proton acceleration regimes: near-critical density plasmas driven by circularly polarized few cycle pulse
• Chirp assisted ion acceleration via relativistic self induced transparency
• Physics of the laser-plasma interface in the relativistic regime of interaction
• Attosecond dispersion as a diagnostics tool for solid-density laser-generated plasmas