A. V. Brantov, M. G. Lobok, V. Yu. Bychenkov, “Improvement of hot-electron and gamma-ray yields by selecting preplasma thickness for a target irradiated by a short laser pulse”, Kvantovaya Elektronika, 2017, Volume 47, Number 3,Pages <nobr>232

This article is cited in 9 papers

Extreme laser radiation: physics and fundamental applications

Improvement of hot-electron and gamma-ray yields by selecting preplasma thickness for a target irradiated by a short laser pulse

A. V. Brantov^ab, M. G. Lobok^b, V. Yu. Bychenkov^ab

^a P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
^b The Center for Fundamental and Applied Research, All-Russia Research Institute of Automatics

Abstract: The dependences of the temperature and the number of hot electrons on the size of the plasma corona of a thin foil target irradiated by a short relativistically intense laser pulse are investigated by three-dimensional numerical simulations. For a 30-fs long laser pulse with an energy of 300 mJ we have determined the optimal preplasma size which maximises the yield of forward-accelerated electrons capable of generating gamma-ray photons several MeV in energy. A study is made of gamma-ray generation by such laser-accelerated electrons in the bombardment of a converter target placed behind the laser target; the brightness of this gamma-ray source is shown to range up to 10¹⁵ photons s^-1 mrad^-2 mm^-2 × (0.1% BW)^-1.

Keywords: gamma-ray radiation, laser pulse of relativistic intensity, three-dimensional simulations.

Received: 06.02.2017