Magnetic field amplification in a laser-irradiated thin foil by return current electrons carrying orbital angular momentum

Abstract

Magnetized high energy density physics offers new opportunities for observing magnetic field-related physics for the first time in the laser-plasma context. We focus on one such phenomenon, which is the ability of a laser-irradiated magnetized plasma to amplify a seed magnetic field. We performed a series of fully kinetic 3D simulations of magnetic field amplification by a picosecond-scale relativistic laser pulse of intensity $4.2\times 10^{18}$ W/cm${}^2$ incident on a thin foil. We observe axial magnetic field amplification from an initial 0.1 kT seed to 1.5 kT over a volume of several cubic microns, persisting hundreds of femtoseconds longer than the laser pulse duration. The magnetic field amplification is driven by electrons in the return current gaining favorable orbital angular momentum from the seed magnetic field. This mechanism is robust to laser polarization and delivers order-of-magnitude amplification over a range of simulation parameters.

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Magnetic field amplification to the gigagauss scale via dynamos driven by femtosecond lasers
• Efficient generation of axial magnetic field by multiple laser beams with twisted pointing directions
• Sign reversal in magnetic field amplification by relativistic laser-driven microtube implosions
• Strong surface magnetic field generation in relativistic short pulse laser-plasma interaction with an applied seed magnetic field
• Progress in relativistic laser-plasma interaction with kilotesla-level applied magnetic fields