Generation of cold magnetized relativistic plasmas at the rear of thin foils irradiated by ultra-high-intensity laser pulses

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to generate magnetized relativistic plasmas in laboratory settings using ultra-high-intensity laser pulses interacting with thin foils, enabling the study of extreme astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme utilizing laser-irradiated thin foils to produce strongly magnetized relativistic plasmas, demonstrated through Particle-In-Cell simulations.

Findings

Generation of azimuthal magnetic fields exceeding electron rest-mass energy density

Magnetic pressure surpasses plasma pressure in the expanding sheath

Electron gyroradius is smaller than plasma dimensions

Abstract

A scheme to generate magnetized relativistic plasmas in laboratory is proposed. It is based on interaction of ultra-high-intensity sub-picosecond laser pulses with few-micron thick foils or films. By means of Particle-In-Cell simulations it is shown that energetic electrons produced by the laser and evacuated at the rear of the target trigger an expansion of the target and builds up a strong azimuthal magnetic field. It is shown that in the expanding plasma sheath a ratio of the magnetic pressure and the electron rest-mass energy density exceeds unity whereas a the plasma pressure is lower than the magnetic pressure and the electron gyroradius is lower than the plasma dimension. This scheme can be utilised to study astrophysical extreme phenomena such as relativistic magnetic reconnection in laboratory.