Layers from initial Rayleigh density profiles by directed nonlinear force driven plasma blocks for alternative fast ignition

Elnaz Yazdani, Yu Cang, Rasoul Sadighi-Bonabi, Heinrich Hora, Frederick Osman

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    31 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Measurement of extremely new phenomena during the interaction of laser pulses with terawatt and higher power and picoseconds with plasmas arrived at drastically different anomalies in contrast to the usual observations if the laser pulses were very clean with a contrast ratio higher than 10 8. This was guaranteed by the suppression of prepulses during less than dozens of ps before the arrival of the main pulse resulting in the suppression of relativistic self-focusing. This anomaly was confirmed in many experimental details, and explained and numerically reproduced as a nonlinear force acceleration of skin layers generating quasi-neutral plasma blocks with ion current densities above 10 11 A/cm2. This may support the requirement to produce a fast ignition deuterium tritium fusion at densities not much higher than the solid state by a single shot PW-ps laser pulse. With the aim to achieve separately studied ignition conditions, we are studying numerically how the necessary nonlinear force accelerated plasma blocks may reach the highest possible thickness by using optimized dielectric properties of the irradiated plasma. The use of double Rayleigh initial density profiles results in many wavelength thick low reflectivity directed plasma blocks of modest temperatures. Results of computations with the genuine two-fluid model are presented.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)149-156
    Number of pages8
    JournalLaser and Particle Beams
    Volume27
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2009

    Keywords

    • fusion
    • lasers

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