Growth of concomitant laser-driven collisionless and resistive electron filamentation instabilities over large spatiotemporal scales

Abstract

Collective processes in plasmas often induce microinstabilities that play an important role in many space or laboratory plasma environments. Particularly notable is the Weibel-type current filamentation instability, which is believed to drive the creation of collisionless shocks in weakly magnetized astrophysical plasmas. Here, this instability class is studied through interactions of ultraintense and short laser pulses with solid foils, leading to localized generation of megaelectronvolt electrons. Proton radiographic measurements of both low- and high-resistivity targets show two distinct, superimposed electromagnetic field patterns arising from the interpenetration of the megaelectronvolt electrons and the background plasma. Particle-in-cell simulations and theoretical estimates suggest that the collisionless Weibel instability building up in the dilute expanding plasmas formed at the target surfaces causes the observed azimuthally symmetric electromagnetic filaments. For a sufficiently high resistivity of the target foil, an additional resistive instability is triggered in the bulk target, giving rise to radially elongated filaments. The data reveal the growth of both filamentation instabilities over large temporal (tens of picoseconds) and spatial (hundreds of micrometres) scales. In the interaction of ultraintense, short laser pulses with solid targets, the collisionless Weibel instability is observed. For a sufficiently high resistivity of the target, an additional resistive instability appears.