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Efficient ion acceleration and dense electron-positron plasma creation in ultra-high intensity laser-solid interactions (1706.04153v2)
Published 13 Jun 2017 in physics.plasm-ph
Abstract: The radiation pressure of next generation ultra-high intensity ($>10{23}$ W/cm${2}$) lasers could efficiently accelerate ions to GeV energies. However, nonlinear quantum-electrodynamic effects play an important role in the interaction of these laser pulses with matter. Here we show that these effects may lead to the production of an extremely dense ($\sim10{24}$ cm${-3}$) pair-plasma which absorbs the laser pulse consequently reducing the accelerated ion energy and energy conversion efficiency by up to 30-50\% & 50-65\%, respectively. Thus we identify the regimes of laser-matter interaction where either ions are efficiently accelerated or dense pair-plasmas are produced as a guide for future experiments.