Abstract
Fast magnetic annihilation is investigated by using 2.5-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of two parallel ultra-short petawatt laser pulses co-propagating in underdense plasma. The magnetic field generated by the laser pulses annihilates in a current sheet formed between the pulses. Magnetic field energy is converted to an inductive longitudinal electric field, which efficiently accelerates the electrons of the current sheet. This new regime of collisionless relativistic magnetic field annihilation with a timescale of tens of femtoseconds can be extended to near-critical and overdense plasma with the ultra-high intensity femtosecond laser pulses.
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