Propagation of Intense Laser and Transport of Relativistic Electron Beam in Inhomogeneous Plasmas

doi:10.19596/j.cnki.1001-246x.8622

Abstract

Abstract:

This work introduces our recent research works on the propagation of intense laser and transport of relativistic electron beam in inhomogeneous plasmas. First of all, we investigated the propagation of intense laser pulse in plasma with randomly uneven density distribution and found a new nonlinear branched flow regime of intense laser propagation in inhomogeneous plasma. In particular, we identify the important effects played by the laser photoionization and relativistic motion of electrons. In addition, we also investigated the plasma density gradient effect on evolution of electrostatic wave excited by ultra-relativistic electron beam in inhomogeneous plasma. It is found that the local region wavenumber and phase velocity of the excited wave varies with time because of the plasma inhomogeneity. Independent of the positive and negative density gradient, the wavenumber finally increases with time. As a result, Landau damping gradually becomes dominant in the whole region of inhomogeneous plasma, and leads to transfer of the wave energy to background plasma electrons, presenting a novel energy dissipation regime caused by the plasma density gradient.

Key words: inhomogeneous plasma, intense laser, relativistic electron beam, branched flow, Landau damping

Taiwu HUANG, Ke JIANG, Ran LI, Cangtao ZHOU. Propagation of Intense Laser and Transport of Relativistic Electron Beam in Inhomogeneous Plasmas[J]. Chinese Journal of Computational Physics, 2023, 40(2): 147-158.

Figures/Tables 6

Fig.1 Initial distributions of (a) electron density ne/nc and (b) plasma refractive index η

Fig.2 Distributions of (a)~(d) laser intensity I/W·cm-2; (c)~(h) electron density ne/nc and (i)~(l) plasma refractive index η (From left to right, I = 1014, 1016, 1018, 1020 W·cm-2.)

Fig.3 The distance from the source to the first caustics d0 for different laser intensities

Fig.4 Electrostatic wave field excited by relativistic electron beam transport in background plasma in Cases A and B, where inhomogeneous plasma is distributed in the region of 100 μm~790 μm (a)~(b) electrostatic wave field for Case B (the red line) and Case A (the blue line) at t = 3 500 fs; (c) temporal evolution of the electric field at positions of x = 50 μm (the magenta line) and x = 900 μm (the blue line) in Case A; (d) electric field in the region of 850 μm~950 μm at t = 3 500 fs, where the red line represents the Case B and the blue one represents Case A; (e) temporal evolution of the electric field at positions of x = 270 μm (red line), x = 445 μm (green line), and x = 820 μm (blue line) in Case A

Fig.5 (a) Electrostatic wave field in the region of 300 ~ 550 μm for Case B at different time moments of t = 1 840 fs (red-solid line), t = 3 600 fs (green-solid line), and t = 5 400 fs (blue-dotted line); (b) electrostatic wave field in the region of 400 ~ 450 μm for Case A at different time moments of t = 1 840 fs (red-solid line) and t = 5 400 fs (blue-dotted line)

Fig.6 (a) Electrostatic wave field in 50~250 μm region for Case C at t ≈ 830 fs; (b)~(d) electrostatic wave field in 130~140 μm region at time moments of t ≈ 830 fs (red line), t ≈ 2 800 fs (green line), and t ≈ 5 000 fs (blue line) (In Case C, the inhomogeneous plasma is distributed in 100~169 μm.)

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