Weibel instability-mediated collisionless shocks in laser-irradiated dense plasmas:Prevailing role of the electrons in the turbulence generation

Abstract

We present a particle-in-cell simulation of the generation of a collisionless turbulent shock in a dense plasma driven by an ultra-high-intensity laser pulse. From the linear analysis, we highlight the crucial role of the laser-heated and return-current electrons in triggering a strong Weibel-like instability, giving rise to a magnetic turbulence able to isotropize the target ions.

Submitted to Phys. Plasmas in February 2015

References in corpus (6)

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Cited by in corpus (15)

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• Probing Ultrafast Magnetic-Field Generation by Current Filamentation Instability in Femtosecond Relativistic Laser-Matter Interactions
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• Physics of relativistic collisionless shocks: The scattering center frame
• Radiation Pressure Driven Ion Weibel Instability and Collisionless Shocks
• Interplay between the Weibel instability and the Biermann battery in realistic laser-solid interactions
• Stability analysis of a periodic system of relativistic current filaments
• Magnetic field amplification by a plasma cavitation instability in relativistic shock precursors
• Microphysics of Relativistic Collisionless Electron-ion-positron Shocks
• Saturation of the asymmetric current filamentation instability under conditions relevant to relativistic shock precursors
• Full particle-in-cell simulation of the interaction between two plasmas for laboratory experiments on the generation of magnetized collisionless shocks with high-power lasers
• Density bump formation in a collisionless electrostatic shock wave in a laser-ablated plasma
• Electron Weibel instability and~quasi-magnetostatic structures in~an~expanding collisionless plasma
• Multi-scale magnetic field structures in an expanding elongated plasma cloud with hot electrons subject to an external magnetic field
• Collisionless shock acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic ions in ultra-relativistic regime