Modeling the electron acceleration in relativistic channels for space irradiation applications

Abstract

We study the interaction of an intense short laser pulse (duration > 100 fs) with a helium gas jet (with a pressure from 1–80 bar) by performing two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The parameters of the existing setups at the CETAL PW facility are used in PIC simulations. The mechanisms of the relativistic laser channeling such as filamentary bifurcation, long-wavelength hosing, bifurcation due to long-wavelength hosing and refractive bifurcation are shown. We also findthe optimum parameters of the laser pulse and the helium gas jet for which electrons are accelerated in the direct laser acceleration regime. We obtained electrons with energies higher than 100 MeV and broad electron energy spectra features that are very useful for space irradiation simulations.