Dynamics of a plasma channel created by the wakefield of a short laser pulse
- 1 April 2003
- journal article
- research article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Physics of Plasmas
- Vol. 10 (4), 1124-1134
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1559011
Abstract
A new physical effect of a plasma channel formation by the ponderomotive force of a wakefield excited by a short laser pulse with duration of the order of electron plasma oscillation period is the plasma frequency) is discussed. The hydrodynamic and particle numerical codes, including plasma ion response, are used to simulate the long-term wakefield behavior. It is found that the wakefield creates a channel with a radial profile depending on the laser pulse width. Particularly, for a narrow pulse, wherein the width is less than is the speed of light), the channel has an annular form with on-axis density maximum. The depth of the channel increases with the distance from the pulse until fine-scale mixing arises and the wake starts to break. Particle simulations show that wave breaking results in emergence of fast electrons taking an essential part of the wake energy during a few plasma periods. Quasilinear fluid equations describing self-consistently, the laser wakefield generation, and plasma channel formation are derived. The wave-breaking conditions are obtained in the geometrical optics approximation. The results of numerical simulations for high-intensity laser pulses are in good agreement with theoretical predictions. The scaling laws for wave breaking are discussed.
Keywords
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