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Updated: Jun 19, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Enhanced self-focusing of an ion beam pulse propagating through a background plasma along a solenoidal magnetic field
Mikhail A Dorf1, Igor D Kaganovich, Edward A Startsev
1Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08543, USA.
Abstract:
It is shown that the application of a weak solenoidal magnetic field along the direction of ion beam propagation through a neutralizing background plasma can significantly enhance the beam self-focusing for the case where the beam radius is small compared to the collisionless electron skin depth. The enhanced focusing is provided by a strong radial self-electric field that is generated due to a local polarization of the magnetized plasma background by the moving ion beam. A positive charge of the ion beam pulse becomes overcompensated by the plasma electrons, which results in the radial focusing of the beam ions. The expression for the self-focusing force is derived analytically and compared with the results of numerical simulations.
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