Abstract
Two-dimensional particle-in cell simulation shows that protons in a small target located in an underdense high-mass plasma can be accelerated by the radiation pressure of a short circularly polarized laser pulse as well as by the wake bubble field of the laser in the background plasma. The radiation-pressure preaccelerated protons are easily trapped and accelerated stably in front of the bubble for a relatively long distance. It is found that a quasimonoenergetic proton beam of 38 GeV peak energy and 12.6% energy spread as well as small divergence angle can be obtained with a 10 23 W=cm 2 18.26 kJ laser pulse in a tritium plasma of density 5:2 � 10 20 cm � 3 .
Highlights
Particle acceleration in laser-plasma interaction is of much interest because of its promising role in realizing tabletop charge-particle accelerators [1,2,3,4,5]
It is found that a quasimonoenergetic proton beam of 38 GeV peak energy and 12.6% energy spread as well as small divergence angle can be obtained with a 1023 W=cm2 18.26 kJ laser pulse in a tritium plasma of density 5:2 Â 1020 cmÀ3
In order to isolate the effect of the transverse spacecharge field, we show in Fig. 4(a) the electrostatic field Ey for the case of a p-polarized laser pulse
Summary
Particle acceleration in laser-plasma interaction is of much interest because of its promising role in realizing tabletop charge-particle accelerators [1,2,3,4,5]. With long interaction times many undesirable effects such as instabilities can take place during the acceleration process, even if the laser pulse itself can be well controlled [11]. Another approach is by laser wakefield acceleration in the bubble regime [12,13,14,15]. The bubble, a multidimensional relativistic plasma wave, is generated when the plasma electrons are pushed away by an intense short laser pulse and eventually pulled back by the space-charge electric field as the laser pulse propagates forward.
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