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Published on: May 3, 2019
Achieving Stable Radiation Pressure Acceleration of Heavy Ions via Successive Electron Replenishment from Ionization
X F Shen1,2, B Qiao1,2,3, H Zhang1,4
1Center for Applied Physics and Technology, HEDPS, State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, and School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Abstract:
A method to achieve stable radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) of heavy ions from laser-irradiated ultrathin foils is proposed, where a high-Z material coating in front is used. The coated high-Z material, acting as a moving electron repository, continuously replenishes the accelerating heavy ion foil with comoving electrons in the light-sail acceleration stage due to its successive ionization under laser fields with Gaussian temporal profile. As a result, the detrimental effects such as foil deformation and electron loss induced by the Rayleigh-Taylor-like and other instabilities in RPA are significantly offset and suppressed so that stable acceleration of heavy ions are maintained. Particle-in-cell simulations show that a monoenergetic Al^{13+} beam with peak energy 3.8 GeV and particle number 10^{10} (charge >20 nC) can be obtained at intensity 10^{22} W/cm^{2}.
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