Laser Pulse In Underdense Plasma Research Articles

Formation and properties of spatially inhomogeneous plasma density gratings.

Volume plasma density gratings receive increasing interest since, compared to solid-state optical media, they posses significantly higher damage thresholds. The gratings are produced by counterpropagating laser pulses in underdense plasma. When analyzing their optical properties, usually they are assumed to be homogeneous in space. The latter assumption, however, breaks down, especially when the gratings are produced by short high-power laser pump pulses. Then, generically the plasma grating posses an inhomogeneous envelope which results from the superposition of the pump pulses envelopes. The present paper discusses the effect of grating inhomogeneity on reflection and transmission of probe pulses. A Gaussian plasma density grating becomes an apodized grating which offers significant improvement over homogeneous gratings due to side-lobe suppression while maintaining reflectivity and a narrow bandwidth. On the other hand, the reflected probe pulses receive a chirp which depends on the spatial scale. For a Gaussian grating a cubic spectral phase appears. Numerical particle-in-cell simulations are supported by theoretical analysis based on coupled mode equationsas well as an effective medium approach.

Visualization of relativistic laser pulses in underdense plasma

We present experimental evidence of relativistic electron-cyclotron resonances (RECRs) in the vicinity of the relativistically intense pump laser of a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA). The effects of the RECRs are visualized by imaging the driven plasma wave with a few-cycle, optical probe in transverse geometry. The probe experiences strong, spectrally dependent and relativistically modified birefringence in the vicinity of the pump that arises due to the plasma electrons' relativistic motion in the pump's electromagnetic fields. The spectral birefringence is strongly dependent on the local magnetic field distribution of the pump laser. Analysis and comparison to both 2D and 3D particle-in-cell simulations confirm the origin of the RECR effect and its appearance in experimental and simulated shadowgrams of the laser-plasma interaction. The RECR effect is relevant for any relativistic, magnetized plasma and in the case of LWFA could provide a nondestructive, in situ diagnostic for tracking the evolution of the pump's intensity distribution with propagation through tenuous plasma.

Recoil effects on reflection from relativistic mirrors in laser plasmas

Relativistic mirrors can be realized with strongly nonlinear Langmuir waves excited by intense laser pulses in underdense plasma. On reflection from the relativistic mirror, the incident light affects the mirror motion. The corresponding recoil effects are investigated analytically and using particle-in-cell simulations. It is found that if the fluence of the incident electromagnetic wave exceeds a certain threshold, the relativistic mirror undergoes a significant back reaction and splits into multiple electron layers. The reflection coefficient of the relativistic mirror and the factors of electric field amplification and frequency upshift of the electromagnetic wave are obtained.

Optimization of relativistic laser self-channeling in experimental Xenon gas jet target

Relativistic and ponderomotive self-channeling of intense ultrashort laser pulses in underdense plasmas is investigated numerically under more realistic experimental conditions. The optimization of the controlled power compression and stability of the channel can be realized with the use of appropriate incident laser power, beam focusing, and gas density profile conditions. The results of simulating the whole self-channeling are in good general agreement with the experimental observations for the self-channeling of TW-level 248 nm laser pulses in Xenon gas jets, capture the salient features of the relativistic self-channeling dynamics, and examine the root causes of experimental observations more accurately than before. The channel length is consistent with some transverse Xenon M-shell radiation measurements of the interaction region. The theoretically predicted ∼400 nm channel diameter indicates that the laser channel intensity could be an order of magnitude larger than previously anticipated.

Simulation of a chirped femtosecond relativistic laser pulse interaction with underdense plasma by using a hydrodynamic approach

AbstractA chirped laser pulse indicates that the laser frequency changes over the duration of the pulse: a positively (negatively) chirped pulse implies that the laser frequency increases (decreases) with time. In this paper, we use a simplified, fully relativistic hydrodynamic approach to simulate the influence of chirp on the propagation of a femtosecond relativistic laser pulse in underdense plasma. Based on this simplified cold‐fluid model, the influence of chirp on the main dynamics of the laser pulse, such as self‐steepening, red‐shift in the leading edge, variation of the frequency chirp, and the generated wakefields can be studied self‐consistently. The simulation results show that a pulse with a positive chirp results in a larger increment in the intensity parameter a0 when propagating a certain distance into an underdense plasma compared with an un‐chirped and a negatively chirped pulse, which is largely because of a much greater forward shift of the peak amplitude and more severe pulse self‐steepening effect due to the frequency red‐shift at the leading edge when exciting a plasma wave. The ponderomotive force, which relates to the first‐order differential of the laser pulse intensity envelope, is expected to be stronger for a positively chirped pulse because of its steeper leading edge and larger intensity parameter a0. As a result, the wakefield driven by the positively chirped laser pulse is more intense than that driven by an un‐chirped and a negatively chirped laser pulse, which is confirmed by our self‐consistent hydrodynamic simulation.

Generation of Terahertz Radiation under Interaction of Counterpropagating Laser Pulses in Underdense Plasma

Generation of terahertz waves under interaction of two counterpropagating laser pulses with different frequencies in underdense plasma is analyzed. Spectral, angular, and energy characteristics of terahertz radiation are investigated as functions of the frequency difference of the laser pulses. It is shown that, due to the frequency difference, in addition to the line at the doubled plasma frequency [L.M. Gorbunov, A.A. Frolov, JETP 98, 527 (2004)], a peak near the plasma frequency appears in the emission spectrum. The total energy of the terahertz signal is calculated, and the condition under which emission at the plasma frequency dominates is found. It is shown that the energy of radiation at the plasma frequency reaches its maximum value when the frequency difference of the laser pulses is close to the plasma frequency.

Improvement of Properties of Self-Injected and Accelerated Electron Bunch by Laser Pulse in Plasma, Using Pulse Precursor

The accelerating gradients in conventional linear accelerators are currently limited to ~100 MV/m. Plasma-based accelerators have the ability to sustain accelerating gradients which are several orders of magnitude greater than that obtained in conventional accelerators. Due to the rapid development of laser technology the laser-plasma-based accelerators are of great interest now. Over the past decade, successful experiments on laser wakefield acceleration of electrons in the plasma have confirmed the relevance of this acceleration. Evidently, the large accelerating gradients in the laser plasma accelerators allow to reduce the size and to cut the cost of accelerators. Another important advantage of the laser-plasma accelerators is that they can produce short electron bunches with high energy. The formation of electron bunches with small energy spread was demonstrated at intense laser–plasma interactions. Electron self-injection in the wake-bubble, generated by an intense laser pulse in underdense plasma, has been studied. With newly available compact laser technology one can produce 100 PW-class laser pulses with a single-cycle duration on the femtosecond timescale. With a fs intense laser one can produce a coherent X-ray pulse. Prof. T. Tajima suggested utilizing these coherent X-rays to drive the acceleration of particles. When such X-rays are injected into a crystal they interact with a metallic-density electron plasma and ideally suit for laser wakefield acceleration. In numerical simulation of authors, performed according to idea of Prof. T.Tajima, on wakefield excitation by a X-ray laser pulse in a metallic-density electron plasma the accelerating gradient of several TV/m has been obtained. It is important to form bunch with small energy spread and small size. The purpose of this paper is to show by the numerical simulation that some precursor-laser-pulse, moved before the main laser pulse, controls properties of the self-injected electron bunch and provides at certain conditions small energy spread and small size of self-injected and accelerated electron bunch.

Electron acceleration induced by interaction of two relativistic laser pulses in underdense plasmas

By using multidimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we demonstrate that the coherent interaction of two relativistic laser pulses in plasmas offers a degree of freedom for manipulating the electron acceleration process. It is shown that by adjusting the relative phase between two intense laser pulses, their interaction features in plasmas are well controlled, which subsequently induce different electron acceleration processes. In this case, the properties of the accelerated electron beam, including the directionality, the maximum energy, and the conversion efficiency, can be controlled though the manipulation of the energy redistribution of these intense laser pulses. In particular, compared to the cases with a single laser pulse or two out-of-phase laser pulses, two in-phase laser pulses fuse into a much stronger laser pulse, which significantly prolongs the electron acceleration length in plasmas and leads to the generation of energetic electron beam with much higher conversion efficiency.

Magnetic field annihilation and reconnection driven by femtosecond lasers in inhomogeneous plasma

The process of fast magnetic reconnection driven by intense ultra-short laser pulses in underdense plasma is investigated by particle-in-cell simulations. In the wakefield of such laser pulses, quasi-static magnetic fields at a few mega-Gauss are generated due to nonvanishing cross product ∇ ( n / γ ) × p . Excited in an inhomogeneous plasma of decreasing density, the quasi-static magnetic field structure is shown to drift quickly both in lateral and longitudinal directions. When two parallel-propagating laser pulses with close focal spot separation are used, such field drifts can develop into magnetic reconnection (annihilation) in their overlapping region, resulting in the conversion of magnetic energy to kinetic energy of particles. The reconnection rate is found to be much higher than the value obtained in the Hall magnetic reconnection model. Our work proposes a potential way to study magnetic reconnection-related physics with short-pulse lasers of terawatt peak power only.

Absorption of the S-polarized short laser pulse in underdense plasma by considering the electrons ohmic heating and the laser pulse ponderomotive force effects

With the advent of ultrashort high intensity laser pulses, laser absorption during laser-plasma interactions has received significant attention during the past two decades since it is related to a variety of applications of high intensity lasers, including the hot electron production for fast ignition of fusion targets, bright X-ray and gamma-ray sources, ion acceleration, compact neutron sources, and generally the creation of high energy density matters. Although some absorption mechanisms appear for short laser pulses with nanosecond duration time, they usually appear for some nonlinear phenomena as electron ohmic heating and laser pulse ponderomotive force are not considered. In this paper, the absorption of the S-polarized laser pulse through an interaction with an underdense plasma in attendance of electron ohmic heating and ponderomotive nonlinearities is analyzed. It is shown that, due to the effect of the ponderomotive force in both isothermal and non-isothermal plasmas, the increasing laser radiation angle leads to the increasing electric field wavelength. Also, since the ponderomotive force modifies the electron density and temperature distribution, it is shown that the decreasing radiation angle leads to the steepening of the electron density profile and the narrowing of electron bunching. Furthermore, by increasing the radiation angle, the absorption coefficient is decreased strongly. It is found that due to the heat of the plasma at the expanse of the wave energy in the case of a non-thermal plasma, the absorption coefficient is increased intensively in comparison to a collisional plasma.

Large-charge quasimonoenergetic electron beams produced by off-axis colliding laser pulses in underdense plasma.

Electrons can be efficiently injected into a plasma wave by colliding two counterpropagating laser pulses in a laser wakefield acceleration. However, the generation of a high-quality electron beam with a large charge is difficult in the traditional on-axis colliding scheme due to the growth of the electron beam duration coming from the increase of the beam charge. To solve this problem, we propose an off-axis colliding scheme, in which the collision point is away from the axis of the driver pulse. We show that the electrons injected from the off-axis region are highly concentered on the tail of the bubble even for a large trapped charge, thus feeling almost the same accelerating field. As a result, quasimonoenergetic electron beams with a large charge can be produced. The validity of this scheme is confirmed by both the particle-in-cell simulations and the Hamiltonian model. Furthermore, it is shown that a Laguerre-Gauss (LG) laser can be adopted as the injection pulse to realize the off-axis colliding injection in three dimensions symmetrically, which may be useful in simplifying the technical layout of the real experiment setup.

Decomposition of powerful axisymmetrically polarized laser pulses in underdense plasma.

Interaction of relativistically intense axisymmetrically polarized (radially or azimuthally polarized) laser pulses (RIAPLP) with underdense plasma is shown experimentally and theoretically to be essentially different from the interaction of conventional Gaussian pulses. The difference is clearly observed in distinct spectra of the side-scattered laser light for the RIAPLP and Gaussian pulses, as well as in the appearance of a spatially localized strong side emission of second harmonic of the laser pulse in the case of RIAPLP. According to our analysis based on three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, this is a result of instability in the propagation of RIAPLP in uniform underdense plasma.

Self-channelling of intense laser pulses in underdense plasma and stability analysis

Self-channelling of intense laser pulses have been studied in underdense plasma using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, for different laser powers and plasma densities as well as analytical theory. It is found that single channel solution occurs for laser powers above the threshold power (∼1.1Pcr) and for plasma densities n<0.1ncr. For higher laser powers P>33Pcr, ring structure, an evacuated ring enclosed by electron filament, was observed in the simulations as predicted by analytical model. The stability of ring structure against symmetric and asymmetric azimuthal perturbations have been discussed.

Breaking symmetry in propagation of radially and azimuthally polarized high power laser pulses in underdense plasma

Propagation of relativistically intense azimuthally or radially polarized laser pulses (RPP) is demonstrated, via 3D particle-in-cell simulations, to be unstable in uniform underdense plasma. Strong breaking of the pulse symmetry occurs for RPP with power exceeding the critical one for self-focusing in transversely uniform plasma with an increment, Γ, close to the well-known Rayleigh-Taylor-like instability depending on the acceleration, α, and the modulated density gradient length, L, as Γ≈(α/L)1/2. In deeper plasma channels, the instability vanishes. Electron self-injection in the pulse wake and resulting acceleration is explored.

Electron acceleration by a bichromatic chirped laser pulse in underdense plasmas

A theoretical study of laser and plasma based electron acceleration is presented. An effective model has been used, in which the presence of an underdense plasma has been taken account via its index of refraction nm. In the confines of this model, the basic phenomena can be studied by numerically solving the classical relativistic equations of motion. The key idea of this paper is the application of chirped, bichromatic laser fields. We investigated the advantages and disadvantages of mixing the second harmonic to the original λ=800nm wavelength pulse. We performed calculations both for plane wave and Gaussian pulses.

Fast magnetic field annihilation driven by two laser pulses in underdense plasma

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.

Absorption of short laser pulses in underdense plasma by considering ohmic heating and ponderomotive force effects

The effect of the non-relativistic ponderomotive force in the interaction of an intense laser pulse with isothermal and non-isothermal underdense collisional plasmas is studied. In this work by considering the ohmic heating of plasma electrons and the ponderomotive force, the nonlinear dielectric permittivity of the plasma medium is obtained and the equation of electromagnetic wave propagation is solved. It is shown that due to the effect of the ponderomotive force in both isothermal and non-isothermal plasmas, the increasing of laser pulse intensity leads to the steepening of the electron density profile and the narrowing of electron bunching. Since the ponderomotive force modifies the electron density and temperature distribution, the spatial damping rate of laser energy and the absorption coefficient are obtained in the collisional regime of isothermal and non-isothermal plasmas. It is shown that in these plasmas, the amplitude of the electric field is increased by increasing laser pulse energy while their wavelength is decreased. Furthermore, by increasing laser pulse intensity, the absorption coefficient is decreased strongly.

Anomalous collisional absorption of laser pulses in underdense plasma at low temperature.

In a previous paper [M. Kundu, Phys. Plasmas 21, 013302 (2014)], fractional collisional absorption (α) of laser light in underdense plasma was studied by using a classical scattering model of electron-ion collision frequency ν(ei), where total velocity v=√[v(th)(2)+v(0)(2)] (with v(th) and v(0) as the thermal and the ponderomotive velocity of an electron) dependent Coulomb logarithm lnΛ(v) was shown to be responsible for the anomalous (unconventional) increase of ν(ei) and α(∝ν(ei)) with the laser intensity I(0) up to a maximum value about an intensity I(c) in the low temperature (T(e)<15eV) regime and a conventional ≈I(0)(-3/2) decrease when I(0)≫I(c). One may object that the anomalous increase in ν(ei) and α were partly due to the artifact introduced in lnΛ through the maximum cutoff distance b(max)∝v. In this work, we show similar anomalous increase in ν(ei) and α versus I(0) (in the low temperature and underdense density regime) with more accurate quantum and classical kinetic models of ν(ei) without using lnΛ, but with a proper choice of the total velocity dependent inverse cutoff length k(max)∝v(2) (classical) or k(max)∝v (quantum). For a given I(0)<5×10(14)Wcm(-2), ν(ei) versus T(e) also exhibits so far unnoticed identical anomalous increase as ν(ei) versus I(0), even if the conventional k(max)∝v(th)(2) or k(max)∝v(th) (without v(0)) is chosen. The total velocity dependent k(max) in the kinetic models, as proposed here, is found to explain the anomalous increase of α with I(0) measured in some earlier laser-plasma experiments.

Proton acceleration in underdense plasma by ultraintense Laguerre–Gaussian laser pulse

A three-dimensional (3D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation is used to investigate witness proton acceleration in underdense plasma with a short intense Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) laser pulse. Driven by the LG10 laser pulse, a special bubble with an electron pillar on the axis is formed in which protons can be well confined by the generated transversal focusing field and accelerated by the longitudinal wakefield. The risk of scattering prior to acceleration with a Gaussian laser pulse in underdense plasma is avoided, and protons are accelerated stably to much higher energy. In the simulation, a proton beam has been accelerated to 7 GeV from 1 GeV in underdense tritium plasma driven by a 2.14 × 1022 W cm−2 LG10 laser pulse.

Electromagnetic radiation from laser wakefields in underdense plasma

AbstractIt is demonstrated by simulations and analysis that a wakefield driven by an ultrashort intense laser pulse in underdense plasma can emit tunable electromagnetic radiation along the laser propagation direction. The profile of such a kind of radiation is closely associated with the structure of the laser wakefield. In general, electromagnetic radiation in the terahertz range with its frequency a few times the electron plasma frequency can be generated in the moderate intensity regime. In the highly nonlinear case, a chain of radiation pulses is formed corresponding to the nonlinear structure of the wake. Study shows that the radiation is associated with the self-modulation process of the laser pulse in the wakefield and resulting transverse electron momenta from modulated asymmetric laser fields.