Electron residual energy due to stochastic heating in field-ionized plasma

Abstract

The electron residual energy originated from the stochastic heating in under-dense field-ionized plasma is investigated here. Initially, the optical response of plasma is modeled by using two counter-propagating electromagnetic waves. In this case, the solution of motion equation of a single electron indicates that by including the ionization, the electron with higher residual energy compared with that without ionization could be obtained. In agreement with chaotic nature of the motion, it is found that the electron residual energy will be significantly changed by applying a minor change in the initial conditions. Extensive kinetic 1D-3V particle-in-cell simulations have been performed in order to resolve full plasma reactions. In this way, two different regimes of plasma behavior are observed by varying the pulse length. The results indicate that the amplitude of scattered fields in a proper long pulse length is high enough to act as a second counter-propagating wave and trigger the stochastic electron motion. On the contrary, the analyses of intensity spectrum reveal the fact that the dominant scattering mechanism tends to Thomson rather than Raman scattering by increasing the pulse length. A covariant formalism is used to describe the plasma heating so that it enables us to measure electron temperature inside and outside of the pulse region.