Laser-Driven Proton-Only Acceleration in a Multicomponent Near-Critical-Density Plasma

TL;DR

This paper reports on laser-driven proton acceleration in a multicomponent near-critical-density plasma, demonstrating proton-only acceleration via collisionless shock, with implications for space and astrophysical plasma physics.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence and simulation insights into proton-only acceleration in multicomponent plasmas using high-intensity lasers.

Findings

Protons are the sole accelerated ions in the experiment.

Collisionless shock can selectively accelerate protons.

Simulation results support the experimental observations.

Abstract

An experimental investigation of collisionless shock ion acceleration is presented using a multicomponent plasma and a high-intensity picosecond duration laser pulse. Protons are the only accelerated ions when a near-critical-density plasma is driven by a laser with a modest normalized vector potential. The results of particle-in-cell simulations imply that collisionless shock may accelerate protons alone selectively, which can be an important tool for understanding the physics of inaccessible collisionless shocks in space and astrophysical plasma.