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In an experiment carried out at the Prague Asterix Laser System at laser intensities relevant to shock ignition conditions (I > 1016 W/cm2), the heating and transport of hot electrons were studied by using several complementary diagnostics, i.e., Kα time-resolved imaging, hard x-ray filtering (a bremsstrahlung cannon), and electron spectroscopy. Ablators with differing composition from low Z (parylene N) to high Z (nickel) were used in multilayer planar targets to produce plasmas with different coronal temperature and collisionality and modify the conditions of hot-electron generation. The variety of available diagnostics allowed full characterization of the population of hot electrons, retrieving their conversion efficiency, time generation and duration, temperature, and angular divergence. The obtained results are shown to be consistent with those from detailed simulations and similar inertial confinement fusion experiments. Based on the measured data, the advantages, reliability, and complementarity of the experimental diagnostics are discussed.

Magnetic fields can be reorganized by plasma flows and lead to effects such as magnetic reconnection. Here the authors explore the evolution of magnetized-plasma bubbles in a semi-collisional regime and the role of pressure anisotropy in influencing the flow of the laser-produced plasma.

Proton radiography has proved increasingly successful as a diagnostic for electric and magnetic fields in high-energy-density physics experiments. Most experiments use target-normal sheath acceleration sources with a wide energy range in the proton beam, since the velocity spread can help differentiate between electric and magnetic fields and provide time histories in a single shot. However, in magnetized plasma experiments with strong background fields, the broadband proton spectrum leads to velocity-spread-dependent displacement of the beam and significant blurring of the radiograph. We describe the origins of this blurring and show how it can be removed from experimental measurements, and we outline the conditions under which such deconvolutions are successful. As an example, we apply this method to a magnetized plasma experiment that used a background magnetic field of 3 T and in which the strong displacement and energy spread of the proton beam reduced the spatial resolution from tens of micrometers to a few millimeters. Application of the deconvolution procedure accurately recovers radiographs with resolutions better than 100 µm, enabling the recovery of more accurate estimates of the path-integrated magnetic field. This work extends accurate proton radiography to a class of experiments with significant background magnetic fields, particularly those experiments with an applied external magnetic field.

Abstract The transport of hot, relativistic electrons produced by the interaction of an intense petawatt laser pulse with a solid has garnered interest due to its potential application in the development of innovative x-ray sources and ion-acceleration schemes. We report on spatially and temporally resolved measurements of megagauss magnetic fields at the rear of a 50-μm thick plastic target, irradiated by a multi-picosecond petawatt laser pulse at an incident intensity of ~1020 W/cm2. The pump-probe polarimetric measurements with micron-scale spatial resolution reveal the dynamics of the magnetic fields generated by the hot electron distribution at the target rear. An annular magnetic field profile was observed ~5 ps after the interaction, indicating a relatively smooth hot electron distribution at the rear-side of the plastic target. This is contrary to previous time-integrated measurements, which infer that such targets will produce highly structured hot electron transport. We measured large-scale filamentation of the hot electron distribution at the target rear only at later time-scales of ~10 ps, resulting in a commensurate large-scale filamentation of the magnetic field profile. Three-dimensional hybrid simulations corroborate our experimental observations and demonstrate a beam-like hot electron transport at initial time-scales that may be attributed to the local resistivity profile at the target rear.

The periodical change of the Crab nebula’s jet direction challenges our understanding of astrophysical jet dynamics. Here the authors use high-power lasers to create a jet that can be directly compared to the Crab nebula’s, and report the detection of plasma instabilities that mimic kink behaviour.