Multidimensional effects on proton acceleration using high-power intense laser pulses

Abstract

Dimensional effects in particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation of target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) of protons are considered. As the spatial divergence of the laser-accelerated hot sheath electrons and the resulting space-charge electric field on the target backside depend on the spatial dimension, the maximum energy of the accelerated protons obtained from three-dimensional (3D) simulations is usually much less that from two-dimensional (2D) simulations. By closely examining the TNSA of protons in 2D and 3D PIC simulations, we deduce an empirical ratio between the maximum proton energies obtained from the 2D and 3D simulations. This ratio may be useful for estimating the maximum proton energy in realistic (3D) TNSA from the results of the corresponding 2D simulation. It is also shown that the scaling law also applies to TNSA from structured targets.

arXiv comment20 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, 45 references

References in corpus (7)

• Ion acceleration by superintense laser-plasma interaction
• Radiation Pressure Acceleration of Thin Foils with Circularly Polarized Laser Pulses
• Laser ion acceleration using a solid target coupled with a low density layer
• Microengineering laser plasma interactions at relativistic intensities
• Bright X-ray source from a laser-driven micro-plasma-waveguide
• Table-top laser-based proton acceleration in nanostructured targets
• Attospiral generation upon interaction of circularly polarized intense laser pulses with cone-like targets

Cited by in corpus (4)

• A Particle-In-Cell Code Comparison for Ion Acceleration: EPOCH, LSP, and WarpX
• Electron and ion acceleration from femtosecond laser-plasma peeler scheme
• Intensity and Dimensionality-Dependent Dynamics of Laser-Proton Acceleration in 1D, 2D, and 3D Particle-in-Cell Simulations
• Effects of simulation dimensionality on laser-driven electron acceleration and photon emission in hollow micro-channel targets