Petawatt laser absorption bounded

Abstract

The interaction of petawatt ($10^{15}\mathrm{W}$) lasers with solid matter forms the basis for advanced scientific applications such as table-top particle accelerators, ultrafast imaging systems and laser fusion. Key metrics for these applications relate to absorption, yet conditions in this regime are so nonlinear that it is often impossible to know the fraction of absorbed light $f$, and even the range of $f$ is unknown. Here using a relativistic Rankine-Hugoniot-like analysis, we show for the first time that $f$ exhibits a theoretical maximum and minimum. These bounds constrain nonlinear absorption mechanisms across the petawatt regime, forbidding high absorption values at low laser power and low absorption values at high laser power. For applications needing to circumvent the absorption bounds, these results will accelerate a shift from solid targets, towards structured and multilayer targets, and lead the development of new materials.

References in corpus (10)

• Radiation Pressure Dominate Regime of Relativistic Ion Acceleration
• Ion acceleration in multispecies targets driven by intense laser radiation pressure
• Hole boring in a DT pellet and fast ion ignition with ultra-intense laser pulses
• High Power Gamma-Ray Flash Generation in Ultra Intense Laser-Plasma Interaction
• A table-top laser-based source of femtosecond, collimated, ultra-relativistic positron beams
• Theory of Fast Electron Transport for Fast Ignition
• Generation of 'Super-Ponderomotive' Electrons due to a non-Wakefield interaction between a Laser Pulse and a Longitudinal Electric Field
• Laser ion acceleration using a solid target coupled with a low density layer
• Laser-plasma interactions for fast ignition
• The Effects of Front-Surface Target Structures on Properties of Relativistic Laser-Plasma Electrons

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Determination of plasma screening effects for thermonuclear reactions in laser-generated plasmas
• Efficient generation of axial magnetic field by multiple laser beams with twisted pointing directions
• Recovering Gardner Restacking with Purely Diffusive Operations
• Optimized plasma high harmonics generation from ultra-intense laser pulses
• Maximal energy extraction under discrete diffusive exchange
• Mixed diffusive-convective relaxation of a broad beam of energetic particles in cold plasma
• Particle-in-Cell Simulations of Density Peak Formation and Ion Acceleration from Short Pulse Laser-Driven Ponderomotive Steepening
• Minimum Stabilizing Energy Release for Mixing Processes
• Upper and Lower Bounds on Phase-Space Rearrangements
• Effects of hole-boring and relativistic transparency on particle acceleration in overdense plasma irradiated by short multi-PW laser pulses