Short-pulse laser interactions with high density plasma

• Main Author: Ramsay, Martin
• Published: University of Warwick 2015
• Subjects: 530.4; QC Physics
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.682920

The constraints on particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of short-pulse laser interactions with solid density targets severely limit the spatial and temporal scales which can be modelled routinely. Although recent advances in high performance computing (HPC) capabilities have rendered collisionless simulations at a scale and density directly applicable to experiments tractable, detailed modelling of the fast electron transport resulting from the laser interaction is often only possible by sampling the fast electron populations and passing this information to a separate, dedicated transport code. However, this approach potentially neglects phenomena which take place or are seeded near the transition between the two codes. Consequently there is a need to develop techniques capable of efficiently modelling fast electron transport in high density plasma without being subject to the usual grid-scale and time-step constraints. The approach employed must also be compatible with retaining the standard PIC model in the laser interaction regions in order to model laser absorption and charged particle acceleration processes. Such an approach, proposed by Cohen, Kemp and Divol [J. Comput. Phys., 229:4591, 2010], has been identified, adapted and implemented in EPOCH. The final algorithm, as implemented, is presented here. To demonstrate the ability of the adapted code to model high intensity laser-plasma interactions with peak densities at, and above, solid density, the results of simulations investigating filamentation of the fast electron population and heating of the bulk target, at high densities, are presented and compared with the results of recent experiments as well as other, similar codes.