Detailed characterization of a laboratory magnetized supercritical collisionless shock and of the associated proton energization

Collisionless shocks are ubiquitous in the Universe and are held responsible for the production of nonthermal particles and high-energy radiation.In the absence of particle collisions in the system,theory shows that the interaction of an expanding plasma with a pre-existing electromagnetic structure(as in our case)is able to induce energy dissipation and allow shock formation.Shock formation can alternatively take place when two plasmas interact,through microscopic instabilities inducing electromagnetic fields that are able in turn to mediate energy dissipation and shock formation.Using our platform in which we couple a rapidly expanding plasma induced by high-power lasers(JLF/Titan at LLNL and LULI2000)with high-strength magnetic fields,we have investigated the generation of a magnetized collisionless shock and the associated particle energization.We have characterized the shock as being collisionless and supercritical.We report here on measurements of the plasma density and temperature,the electromagnetic field structures,and the particle energization in the experiments,under various conditions of ambient plasma and magnetic field.We have also modeled the formation of the shocks using macroscopic hydrodynamic simulations and the associated particle acceleration using kinetic particle-in-cell simulations.As a companion paper to Yao et al.[Nat.Phys.17,1177–1182(2021)],here we show additional results of the experiments and simulations,providing more information to allow their reproduction and to demonstrate the robustness of our interpretation of the proton energization mechanism as being shock surfing acceleration.

Numerical investigation of spallation neutrons generated from petawatt-scale laser-driven proton beams

Laser-driven neutron sources could offer a promising alternative to those based on conventional accelerator technologies in delivering compact beams of high brightness and short duration.We examine this through particle-in-cell and Monte Carlo simulations that model,respectively,the laser acceleration of protons from thin-foil targets and their subsequent conversion into neutrons in secondary lead targets.Laser parameters relevant to the 0.5 PW LMJ-PETAL and 0.6–6 PW Apollon systems are considered.Owing to its high intensity,the 20-fs-duration 0.6 PW Apollon laser is expected to accelerate protons up to above 100MeV,thereby unlocking efficient neutron generation via spallation reactions.As a result,despite a 30-fold lower pulse energy than the LMJ-PETAL laser,the 0.6 PW Apollon laser should perform comparably well both in terms of neutron yield and flux.Notably,we predict that very compact neutron pulses,of∼10 ps duration and∼100μm spot size,can be released provided the lead convertor target is thin enough(∼100μm).These sources are characterized by extreme fluxes,of the order of 10^(23) n cm^(−2) s^(−1),and even ten times higher when using the 6 PW Apollon laser.Such values surpass those currently achievable at large-scale accelerator-based neutron sources(∼10^(16) n cm^(−2) s^(−1)),or reported from previous laser experiments using low-Z converters(∼10^(18) n cm^(−2) s^(−1)).By showing that such laser systems can produce neutron pulses significantly brighter than existing sources,our findings open a path toward attractive novel applications,such as flash neutron radiography and laboratory studies of heavy-ion nucleosynthesis.

Highly-collimated, high-charge and broadband MeV electron beams produced by magnetizing solids irradiated by high-intensity lasers

Laser irradiation of solid targets can drive short and high-charge relativistic electron bunches over micron-scale acceleration gradients.However,for a long time,this technique was not considered a viable means of electron acceleration due to the large intrinsic divergence(∼50°half-angle)of the electrons.Recently,a reduction in this divergence to 10°–20°half-angle has been obtained,using plasma-based magnetic fields or very high contrast laser pulses to extract the electrons into the vacuum.Here we show that we can further improve the electron beam collimation,down to∼1.5°half-angle,of a high-charge(6 nC)beam,and in a highly reproducible manner,while using standard stand-alone 100 TW-class laser pulses.This is obtained by embedding the laser-target interaction in an external,large-scale(cm),homogeneous,extremely stable,and high-strength(20 T)magnetic field that is independent of the laser.With upcoming multi-PW,high repetition-rate lasers,this technique opens the door to achieving even higher charges(>100 nC).