Identifying the source of super-high energetic electrons in the presence of pre-plasma in laser-matter interaction at relativistic intensities

Abstract

The generation of super-high energetic electrons influenced by pre-plasma at relativistic intensity laser-matter interaction is studied in a one-dimensional slab approximation with particle-in-cell simulations. Different pre-plasma scale-lengths of $1\mu \text{m}$, $5\mu \text{m}$, $10\mu \text{m}$ and $15\mu \text{m}$ are considered, showing an increase in both particle number and cut-off kinetic energy of electrons with the increase of pre-plasma scale-length, and the cut-off kinetic energy greatly exceeding the corresponding laser ponderomotive energy. A two-stage electron acceleration model is proposed to explain the underlying physics. The first stage is attributed to the synergetic acceleration by longitudinal electric field and laser pulse, with its efficiency depending on the pre-plasma scale-length. These electrons pre-accelerated in the first stage could build up an intense electrostatic potential barrier with its maximal value several times as large of the initial electron kinetic energy. Part of energetic electrons could be further accelerated by the reflection off the electrostatic potential barrier, with their finial kinetic energies significantly higher than the values pre-accelerated in the first stage.

10 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Enhancement of laser-driven electron acceleration in an ion channel
• Suppression of transverse ablative Rayleigh-Taylor-like instability in the hole-boring radiation pressure acceleration by using elliptically polarized laser pulses

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Monte-Carlo approach to calculate the ionization of warm dense matter within particle-in-cell simulations
• The generation of unexpected super-high energetic electrons at relativistic circularly polarized laser-solid interactions in the presence of large scale pre-plasmas
• High-angle Deflection of the Energetic Electrons by a Voluminous Magnetic Structure in Near-normal Intense Laser-plasma Interactions
• Stochastic electron heating in the laser and quasi-static electric and magnetic fields