"Light Sail" Acceleration Revisited

TL;DR

This paper revisits the physics of ultrathin foil acceleration by intense laser pulses, combining analytical models and simulations to refine understanding of energy transfer and efficiency in light sail acceleration.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of self-induced transparency and charge separation effects, improving the theoretical understanding of ultrathin foil acceleration.

Findings

Optimal foil thickness results in rear-side acceleration only.

The Light Sail model estimates energy well but overestimates efficiency.

Charge separation effects are crucial for accurate modeling.

Abstract

The dynamics of the acceleration of ultrathin foil targets by the radiation pressure of superintense, circularly polarized laser pulses is investigated by analytical modeling and particle-in-cell simulations. By addressing self-induced transparency and charge separation effects, it is shown that for "optimal" values of the foil thickness only a thin layer at the rear side is accelerated by radiation pressure. The simple "Light Sail" model gives a good estimate of the energy per nucleon, but overestimates the conversion efficiency of laser energy into monoenergetic ions.