Laser electron acceleration in the prepulse produced plasma corona

Abstract

The generation of hot electrons at grazing incidence of a subpicosecond relativistic-intense laser pulse onto the plane solid target is analyzed for the parameters of the petawatt class laser systems. We study the preplasma formation on the surface of solid Al target produced by the laser prepulses with different time structure. For modeling of the preplasma dynamics we use a wide-range two-temperature hydrodynamic model. As a result of simulations, the preplasma expansion under the action of the laser prepulse and the plasma density profiles for different contrast ratios of the nanosecond pedestal are found. These density profiles were used as the initial density distributions in 3-D PIC simulations of electron acceleration by the main P-polarized laser pulse. Results of modeling demonstrate the substantial increase of the characteristic energy and number of accelerated electrons for the grazing incidence of a subpicosecond intense laser pulse in comparison with the laser-target interaction at normal incidence.