Mainz 1997 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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P: Plasmaphysik

P 17: Dichte Plasmen III

P 17.1: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 5. März 1997, 11:00–11:15, P 204

Relativistic Laser-Plasma Interaction above 10¹⁹W/cm²:
Single Light Channel, MeV Electrons, 100 MG Magnetic Fields — •A. Pukhov and J. Meyer-ter-Vehn —
Max-Planck-Institut f"ur Quantenoptik

We present first three-dimensional (3D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simu-lations of ultrashort, high-intensity laser pulse interaction with near-critical plasma. We show that relativistic filamentation and self-focusing is accompanied by acceleration of background electrons to multi-MeV energies in forward direction. The relativistic electrons are pinched by self-generated 100 MegaGauss magnetic fields and channel the light into a narrow single channel, 1-2 wavelength wide. This super-channel contains most of the incident power. Recent experiments confirm these results [1]. We also simulate ponderomotive piercing of overdense plasma by ultra-intense laser pulses. Relativistic electrons penetrate deeply, forming magneticly collimated jets. This is a key issue for Fast Ignition of Inertial Confinement Fusion. The progress in fully electromagnetic 3D-PIC simulations of actual short-pulse laser-plasma experiments is based on the new code VLPL developed at MPQ. Written for massively parallel processing computers like CRAY-T3E, the code exists in 2D and 3D versions, is highly portable and can be run on high-performance work-stations as well.

[1] M. Borghesi et al., PRL submitted (1996)