The Effects of Pre-formed Plasma on the Generation and Transport of Fast Electrons in Relativistic Laser-solid Interactions

Book excerpt: In this thesis we present the dynamics of relativistic fast electrons produced in the laser-solid interactions at the intensities greater than 1018 W/cm2. In particular, the effects of pre-formed plasma in front of a solid target on the generation and transport of these fast electrons is studied. The presence of such a pre-formed plasma is ubiquitous in almost all the present short pulse high intensity laser-solid interaction experiments. First, the generation of fast electrons in the presence of pre-formed plasma of varying density scale-lengths is studied with the help of Particle In Cell (PIC) simulations. It is shown that the fast electrons energy increases with the increasing pre-formed plasma, consistent with the experimental observations. The possible mechanism of generation of such energetic electrons is studied. It is proposed that the interaction of plasma electrons with the laser in the presence of ambipolar electric field, generated due to the laser heating, can result in the electron acceleration beyond laser ponderomotive energy. The analytical and numerical studies of this heating mechanism are presented. In the second part of thesis, the influence of pre-formed plasma on the fast electrons transport is studied. Especially the physics of refluxing of these fast electrons due to the excitation of electrostatic sheath fields inside the pre-formed plasma is investigated. It is shown that this refluxing is responsible for the `annular ring shaped' copper K[alpha] x-ray emission observed in the recent high intensity laser-solid experiments.