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Updated: Mar 25, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Fast magnetic-field annihilation in the relativistic collisionless regime driven by two ultrashort high-intensity
1Institute of Physics of the ASCR, ELI-Beamlines, Na Slovance 2, 18221 Prague, Czech Republic.
Abstract:
The magnetic quadrupole structure formation during the interaction of two ultrashort high power laser pulses with a collisionless plasma is demonstrated with 2.5-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The subsequent expansion of the quadrupole is accompanied by magnetic-field annihilation in the ultrarelativistic regime, when the magnetic field cannot be sustained by the plasma current. This results in a dominant contribution of the displacement current exciting a strong large scale electric field. This field leads to the conversion of magnetic energy into kinetic energy of accelerated electrons inside the thin current sheet.
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