Topic/Type: 1.3 High intensity Laser Plasma Interaction, Poster

### Ion acceleration from ultra intense lasers interacting with solid hydrogen targets: a parametric study of the ELI regime

M. Marti, M. Vranic, L. Cardoso, N. Lopes, R. A. Fonseca, L. O. Silva

IPFN, Instituto Superior T?cnico, Lisboa, Portugal

High intensity laser systems (ELI, HIPER) are expected to reach intensities in excess of $\small 10^{24} W/cm^2$ opening the way to new regimes in laser based particle accelerators.
In this contribution we present a parametric study of of laser-solid (Hydrogen $\small 0.088 g/cm^3$ or $\small 30 n_{critical}$) interactions in the ELI regime ($\small E = 5000 J$, $\small a_0$ from 138 to 1356, pulse durations ~ 15 fs, lambda = 0.8 micron), using the fully relativistic PIC code OSIRIS. Our study is focused on ion acceleration. Several acceleration mechanisms are identified, and the critical conditions for each of the mechanisms to occur are given. The impact of several quantities - including laser intensity, target thickness, focal spot size, and focal point - on the ion beam parameters are studied. This study is complemented by a detailed comparison between one, two and three dimensional simulations in order to reveal the key differences arising from lower dimensionality simulations.
Our simulations show ions with energies up to 6 GeV, with a spectrum showing an exponential decay, with a total charge above 1 GeV of 2.1 microC, and a beam like distribution centered at 2.2 GeV with an energy spread of 4%, with more than 100 nC of charge corresponding to 10% of the laser energy, demonstrating the ability of ultra intense lasers to produce particle sources with unprecedented features.