Evidence of locally enhanced target heating due to instabilities of counter-streaming fast electron beams

Year: 2015

Authors: Koester P., Booth N., Cecchetti C.A., Chen H., Evans R.G., Gregori G., Labate L., Levato T., Li B., Makita M., Mithen J., Murphy C.D., Notley M., Pattathil R., Riley D., Woolsey N., Gizzi LA.

Autors Affiliation: Intense Laser Irradiation Laboratory at INO, CNR, Pisa, Italy; Physics Department, University of York, York, United Kingdom; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA; Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; Physics Department, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; INFN, Sezione di Pisa, Pisa, Italy; University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy; Physics Department, Queens University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom;
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, STFC, Didcot, United Kingdom

Abstract: The high-current fast electron beams generated in high-intensity laser-solid interactions require the onset of a balancing return current in order to propagate in the target material. Such a system of counter-streaming electron currents is unstable to a variety of instabilities such as the current-filamentation instability and the two-stream instability. An experimental study aimed at investigating the role of instabilities in a system of symmetrical counter-propagating fast electron beams is presented here for the first time. The fast electron beams are generated by double-sided laser-irradiation of a layered target foil at laser intensities above 10(19) W/cm(2). High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of the emission from the central Ti layer shows that locally enhanced energy deposition is indeed achieved in the case of counter-propagating fast electron beams. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

Journal/Review: PHYSICS OF PLASMAS

Volume: 22 (2)      Pages from: 020701-1  to: 020701-6

More Information: We would like to thank Ch. Spindloe and coworkers for the preparation of the target foils. We would also like to thank F. Califano for fruitful discussions. The authors acknowledge support from the LASERLAB EUROPE Transnational Access Programme (Grant Agreement No. 228334), the HiPER Project (Grant Agreement No. 211737), and MIUR-PRIN 2012 (Contract No. PRIN2012AY5LEL).
KeyWords: Electron beams; X ray spectroscopy; High intensity lasers; Plasma; Generation
DOI: 10.1063/1.4907195

Citations: 3
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