Propagation instabilities of high-intensity laser-produced electron beams - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2003 May 2;90(17):175001.

doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.175001. Epub 2003 Apr 29.

F N Beg, E L Clark, A E Dangor, R D Edwards, R G Evans, T J Goldsack, K W D Ledingham, P A Norreys, M A Sinclair, M-S Wei, M Zepf, K Krushelnick

Affiliations

Propagation instabilities of high-intensity laser-produced electron beams

M Tatarakis et al. Phys Rev Lett. 2003.

Abstract

Measurements of energetic electron beams generated from ultrahigh intensity laser interactions (I>10(19) W/cm(2)) with dense plasmas are discussed. These interactions have been shown to produce very directional beams, although with a broad energy spectrum. In the regime where the beam density approaches the density of the background plasma, we show that these beams are unstable to filamentation and "hosing" instabilities. Particle-in-cell simulations also indicate the development of such instabilities. This is a regime of particular interest for inertial confinement fusion applications of these beams (i.e., "fast ignition").

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