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Laser acceleration of ion bunches at the front surface of overdense plasmas

Andrea Macchi·Federica Cattani·Tatiana V. Liseykina·Fulvio Cornolti
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Abstract

The acceleration of ions in the interaction of high intensity laser pulses with overdense plasmas is investigated with particle-in-cell simulations. For circular polarization of the laser pulses, high-density ion bunches moving into the plasma are generated at the laser-plasma interaction surface. A simple analytical model accounts for the numerical observations and provides scaling laws for the ion bunch energy and generation time as a function of pulse intensity and plasma density.

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Andrea Macchi, Federica Cattani, Tatiana V. Liseykina, Fulvio Cornolti. 2005-01-31. Laser acceleration of ion bunches at the front surface of overdense plasmas. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.94.165003

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