Transmissions of an x-ray free electron laser pulse through Al: Influence of nonequilibrium electron kinetics.

A theoretical model for investigating the radiative transfer of an x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) pulse is developed based on a one-dimensional radiative transfer equation. The population dynamics of energy levels is obtained by rate equation approximation coupling with the Fokker-Planck equation, in which the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) is self-consistently determined. As an illustrative example, XFEL pulse propagation through a solid-density aluminum (Al) is investigated. The characteristics of the temporal evolution of the x-ray pulse shape, level population, and EEDF are demonstrated. The EEDF usually has two parts in XFEL-Al interactions: the near equilibrium part in the lower energy regions and the nonequilibrium part in the higher energy region. The deep gap between the two parts is quickly filled in the solid-density Al plasma. The pulse shape is distorted and the duration shortens as the x-ray pulse propagates through the Al sample. The x-ray transmission spectra were compared with experimental and other theoretical results, and good agreement was found. There are slight discrepancies between the transmission obtained by solving the Fokker-Planck equation and Maxwellian assumptions because nonequilibrium electrons in the higher energy region account for only a small fraction of the total electrons.

Nonideal effects on ionization potential depression and ionization balance in dense Al and Au plasmas.

For low-density plasmas, the ionization balance can be properly described by the normal Saha equation in the chemical picture. For dense plasmas, however, nonideal effects due to the interactions between the electrons and ions and among the electrons themselves affect the ionization potential depression and the ionization balance. With the increasing of plasma density, the pressure ionization starts to play a more obvious role and competes with the thermal ionization. Based on a local-density temperature-dependent ion-sphere model, we develop a unified and self-consistent theoretical formalism to simultaneously investigate the ionization potential depression, the ionization balance, and the charge states distributions of the dense plasmas. In this work, we choose Al and Au plasmas as examples as Al is a prototype light element and Au is an important heavy element in many research fields such as in the inertial confinement fusion. The nonideal effect of the free electrons in the plasmas is considered by the single-electron effective potential contributed by both the bound electrons of different charge states and the free electrons in the plasmas. For the Al plasmas, we can reconcile the results of two experiments on measuring the ionization potential depression, in which one experiment can be better explained by the Stewart-Pyatt model while the other fits better with the Ecker-Kröll model. For dense Au plasmas, the results show that the double peak structure of the charge state distribution appears to be a common phenomenon. In particular, the calculated ionization balance shows that the two- and three-peak structures can appear simultaneously for denser Au plasmas above ∼30g/cm^{3}.

Generation of attosecond micro bunched beam using ionization injection in laser wakefield acceleration.

Micro bunched electron beams with periodic longitudinal density modulation at optical wavelengths give rise to coherent light emission. In this paper, we show attosecond micro bunched beam generation and acceleration in laser-plasma wakefield via particle-in-cell simulations. Due to the near-threshold ionization with the drive laser, the electrons with phase-dependent distributions are non-linearly mapped to discrete final phase spaces. Electrons can preserve this initial bunching structure during the acceleration, leading to an attosecond electron bunch train after leaving the plasma with separations of the same time scale. The modulation of the comb-like current density profile is about 2k0 ∼ 3k0, where k0 is the wavenumber of the laser pulse. Such pre-bunched electrons with low relative energy spread may have potential in applications related to future coherent light sources driven by laser-plasma accelerators and broad application prospects in attosecond science and ultrafast dynamical detection.

Nonideal effect of free electrons on ionization equilibrium and radiative property in dense plasmas.

The thermodynamic as well as optical properties of strongly coupled plasmas depend crucially on the average degree of ionization and the ionic state composition, which, however, cannot be determined by using the normal Saha equation usually used for the ideal plasmas. Hence, an adequate treatment of the ionization balance and the charge state distribution of strongly coupled plasmas is still a challenge for theory due to the interactions between the electrons and ions and among the electrons themselves. Based on a local density temperature-dependent ion-sphere model, the Saha equation approach is extended to the regime of strongly coupled plasmas by taking into account the free-electron-ion interaction, the free-free-electron interaction, the nonuniform free-electron space distribution, and the free-electron quantum partial degeneracy. All the quantities, including the bound orbitals with ionization potential depression, free-electron distribution, and bound and free-electron partition function contributions, are calculated self-consistently in the theoretical formalism. This study shows that the ionization equilibrium is evidently modified by considering the above nonideal characteristics of the free electrons. Our theoretical formalism is validated by the explanation of a recent experimental measurement of the opacity of dense hydrocarbon.

The Strong Enhancement of Electron-Impact Ionization Processes in Dense Plasma by Transient Spatial Localization.

Recent experiments have observed much higher electron-ion collisional ionization cross sections and rates in dense plasmas than predicted by the current standard atomic collision theory, including the plasma screening effect. We suggest that the use of (distorted) plane waves for incident and scattered electrons is not adequate to describe the dissipation that occurs during the ionization event. Random collisions with free electrons and ions in plasma cause electron matter waves to lose their phase, which results in the partial decoherence of incident and scattered electrons. Such a plasma-induced transient spatial localization of the continuum electron states significantly modifies the wave functions of continuum electrons, resulting in a strong enhancement of the electron-ion collisional ionization of ions in plasma compared to isolated ions. Here, we develop a theoretical formulation to calculate the differential and integral cross sections by incorporating the effects of plasma screening and transient spatial localization. The approach is then used to investigate the electron-impact ionization of ions in solid-density magnesium plasma, yielding results that are consistent with experiments. In dense plasma, the correlation of continuum electron energies is modified, and the integral cross sections and rates increase considerably. For the ionization of Mg9+e+1s22s2S→1s21S+2e, the ionization cross sections increase several-fold, and the rates increase by one order of magnitude. Our findings provide new insight into collisional ionization and three-body recombination and may aid investigations of the transport properties and nonequilibrium evolution of dense plasma.

Enhancement of electron-impact ionization induced by warm dense environments.

Studies have shown significant discrepancies between the recent experiment [Berg et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 055002 (2018)PRLTAO10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.055002] and current theoretical calculations on the electron-impact ionization cross section of ions in warm dense magnesium. Here, we present a systematic study the effects of the ionic correlations and free-electron screening on the electron-impact ionization of ions in warm dense matter. The ionic correlation and the free-electron screening effects yield additional Hermitian terms to the calculation of the ionic central-force-field potential, which significantly change the electronic structure compared with that of the isolated ion. In calculating the electron-impact ionization, we describe the impact and ionized electrons using a damped-distorted wave function, which considers the momentum relaxation of free electrons due to collisions with other free electrons and ions. We reproduce the electron-impact ionization process for Mg^{7+} in the solid-density plasma and increase the ionization cross section by one order of magnitude compared with that of the isolated ion, which excellently agrees with the experimental result of Berg et al.

Triple-core-hole states produced in the interaction of solid-state density plasmas with a relativistic femtosecond optical laser.

Extremely exotic dense matter states can be produced in the interaction of a relativistic femtosecond optical laser with a solid density matter. Here we theoretically investigate triple-core-hole (TCH) states produced by an intense polychromatic x-ray field formed by hot electrons in the interaction of a relativistic femtosecond optical laser with a thin silver foil. X-ray emission spectra of solid-density silver plasmas show unambiguously the production of TCH states at an electron temperature of a few hundreds of eV and radiative temperature of 1-3 keV of the polychromatic x-ray field. Practical calculations show that the emissivity originating from the TCH states exceeds that from the single- and double-core-hole states in Ne-like Ag37+ at electron temperature of ~500 eV and radiative temperature of ~1500 eV. For the neighbouring ionization stages of Ag36+ and Ag38+, TCH emissivity is roughly equivalent or comparable to that from the single- and double-core-hole states. Present work deepens our insight into investigation of the properties of extremely exotic states, which is important in high energy density physics, astrophysics and laser physics.

First-principles study on equation of states and electronic structures of shock compressed Ar up to warm dense regime.

The equation of states (EOS) and electronic structures of argon with temperatures from 0.02 eV to 3 eV and densities from 0.5 g/cm(3) to 5.5 g/cm(3) are calculated using the pair potential and many-body potential molecular dynamics and the density functional theory (DFT) molecular dynamics with van der Waals (vdW) corrections. First-principles molecular dynamics is implemented above 2.0 g/cm(3). For the cases of low densities below 3 g/cm(3), we performed pair potential molecular dynamics in order to obtain the ionic configurations, which are used in density functional theory to calculate the EOS and electronic structures. We checked the validity of different methods at different densities and temperatures, showing their behaviors by comparing EOS. DFT without vdW correction works well above 1 eV and 3.5 g/cm(3). Below 1 eV and 2.0 g/cm(3), it overestimates the pressure apparently and results in incorrect behaviors of the internal energy. With vdW corrections, the semi-empirical force-field correction (DFT-D2) method gives consistent results in the whole density and temperature region, and the vdW density functional (vdW-DF2) method gives good results below 2.5 g/cm(3), but it overestimates the pressure at higher densities. The interactions among the atoms are overestimated by the pair potential above 1 eV, and a temperature dependent scaled pair potential can be used to correct the ionic configurations of the pair potential up to 3 eV. The comparisons between our calculations and the experimental multi-shock compression results show that the Hugoniot line of DFT-D2 and DFT tends to give larger pressure than the results of the self-consistent fluid variational theory, and the difference increases with the density. The electronic energy gap exists for all our cases up to 5.5 g/cm(3) and 1 eV. The effect of vdW interactions on the electronic structures are also discussed.

Coherence and resonance effects in the ultra-intense laser-induced ultrafast response of complex atoms.

Both coherent pumping and energy relaxation play important roles in understanding physical processes of ultra-intense coherent light-matter interactions. Here, using a large-scale quantum master equation approach, we describe dynamical processes of practical open quantum systems driven by both coherent and stochastic interactions. As examples, two typical cases of light-matter interactions are studied. First, we investigate coherent dynamics of inner-shell electrons of a neon gas irradiated by a high-intensity X-ray laser along with vast number of decaying channels. In these single-photon dominated processes, we find that, due to coherence-induced Rabi oscillations and power broadening effects, the photon absorptions of a neon gas can be suppressed resulting in differences in ionization processes and final ion-stage distributions. Second, we take helium as an example of multiphoton and multichannel interference dominated electron dynamics, by investigating the transient absorption of an isolated attosecond pulse in the presence of a femtosecond infrared laser pulse.

Quantum molecular dynamics study on the structures and dc conductivity of warm dense silane.

The ionic and electronic structures of warm dense silane at the densities of 1.795, 2.260, 3.382, and 3.844 g/cm(3) have been studied with temperatures from 1000 K to 3 eV using quantum molecular dynamics simulations. At all densities, the structures are melted above 1000 K. The matter states are characterized as polymeric from 1000 to 4000 K and become dense plasma states with further increasing temperature to 1 eV. At two lower densities of 1.795 and 2.260 g/cm(3), silane first dissociates and then becomes the polymeric state via a chain state from the initial crystalline structure. At higher densities, however, no dissociation stage was found. These findings can help us understand how the warm dense matter forms. A rise is found for the direct current electric conductivity at T ∼ 1000 K, indicating the nonmetal-to-metal transition. The conductivity decreases slightly with the increase of temperature, which is due to the more disordered structures at higher temperatures.

Nuclear quantum dynamics in dense hydrogen.

Nuclear dynamics in dense hydrogen, which is determined by the key physics of large-angle scattering or many-body collisions between particles, is crucial for the dynamics of planet's evolution and hydrodynamical processes in inertial confinement confusion. Here, using improved ab initio path-integral molecular dynamics simulations, we investigated the nuclear quantum dynamics regarding transport behaviors of dense hydrogen up to the temperatures of 1 eV. With the inclusion of nuclear quantum effects (NQEs), the ionic diffusions are largely higher than the classical treatment by the magnitude from 20% to 146% as the temperature is decreased from 1 eV to 0.3 eV at 10 g/cm(3), meanwhile, electrical and thermal conductivities are significantly lowered. In particular, the ionic diffusion is found much larger than that without NQEs even when both the ionic distributions are the same at 1 eV. The significant quantum delocalization of ions introduces remarkably different scattering cross section between protons compared with classical particle treatments, which explains the large difference of transport properties induced by NQEs. The Stokes-Einstein relation, Wiedemann-Franz law, and isotope effects are re-examined, showing different behaviors in nuclear quantum dynamics.

Detailed investigations on radiative opacity and emissivity of tin plasmas in the extreme-ultraviolet region.

Radiative opacity and emissivity of tin plasmas at average ionization degree of about 10 was investigated in detail by using a fully relativistic detailed level accounting approach, in which main physical effects on the opacity were carefully taken into account. Among these physical effects, configuration interaction, in particular core-valence electron correlations, plays an important role on the determination of accurate atomic data required in the calculation of opacity. It results in a strong narrowing of lines from all transition arrays and strong absorption is located in a narrow wavelength region of 12.5-14 nm for Sn plasmas. Using a complete accurate atomic data, we investigated the opacity of Sn plasmas at a variety of physical condition. Among the respective ions of Xe6+-Xe15+ , Xe10+ has the largest absorption cross section at 13.5 nm, while the favorable physical condition for maximal absorption at 13.5 nm do not mean that Xe10+ has the largest fraction. Comparison with other theoretical results showed that a complete set of consistent accurate atomic data, which lacks very much, is essential to predict accurate opacity. Our atomic model is useful and can be applied to interpret opacity experiments. Further benchmark experiments are urgently needed to clarify the physical effects on the opacity of Sn plasmas.

Spectrally resolved opacities and Rosseland and Planck mean opacities of lowly ionized gold plasmas: a detailed level-accounting investigation.

Calculation details of radiative opacity for lowly ionized gold plasmas by using our developed fully relativistic detailed level-accounting approach are presented to show the importance of accurate atomic data for a quantitative reproduction of the experimental observations. Even though a huge number of transition lines are involved in the radiative absorption of high- Z plasmas so that one believes that statistical models can often give a reasonable description of their opacities, we first show in detail that an adequate treatment of physical effects, in particular the configuration interaction (including the core-valence electron correlation), is essential to produce atomic data of bound-bound and bound-free processes for gold plasmas, which are accurate enough to correctly explain the relative intensity of two strong absorption peaks experimentally observed located near photon energy of 70 and 80 eV. A detailed study is also carried out for gold plasmas of an average ionization degree sequence of 10, for both spectrally resolved opacities and Rosseland and Planck means. For comparison, results obtained by using an average atom model are also given to show that even for a relatively higher density of matter, correlation effects are also important to predict the correct positions of absorption peaks of transition arrays.

Radiative opacity of gold plasmas studied by a detailed level-accounting method.

There are systematic discrepancies unexplained so far between theory and experiment for opacities of mid- and high- Z plasmas. To address this issue, we investigated the radiative opacity of gold plasmas by using a detailed level-accounting (DLA) method, in which various physical effects can be taken into account. In this work, we studied in detail the effects of core-valence electron correlation and linewidth on the opacity of gold plasmas. Our DLA results correctly explain the relative intensity of the two strong absorption peaks located near the photon energies of 70 and 80eV , which was experimentally observed by Eidmann [Europhys. Lett. 44, 459 (1998)]. Meanwhile, the DLA results showed that effects of saturation for the strong individual lines are evident in the transmission spectrum.

Influence of detailed line treatment on the opacity of iron plasmas in the 2p-3d energy region.

The transmission spectrum has been calculated using a detailed-level-accounting model for iron plasmas in local thermodynamic equilibrium in the 2p-3d excitation energy region. The calculation is motivated by the large difference between the theories obtained by statistical methods such as unresolved transition array and superconfiguration transition array and the experiment reported in the literature. Detailed studies have been carried out on the effects of the width of individual lines and configuration interaction. The results show that the saturation of individual lines is evident in the transmission. These effects should be considered carefully to obtain an accurate opacity or transmission. In view of the uncertainties in the experiment, rather good agreement is found between our theoretical result and the experiment when these effects are taken into account in the calculation.

Radiative opacities and configuration interaction effects of hot iron plasma using a detailed term accounting model.

We have calculated the radiative opacities of iron plasma in local thermodynamic equilibrium using a detailed term accounting model. The extensive atomic data are obtained by multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock (MCHF) method, with Breit-Pauli relativistic corrections. Extensive configuration interaction (CI) has been included based on LS coupling to obtain energy levels and the bound-bound transition cross sections. A detailed configuration accounting model is applied to evaluate the bound-free absorption cross sections. We simulate two experimental transmission spectra [G. Winhart et al., Phys. Rev. E 53, R1332 (1996); P. T. Springer et al., J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transf. 58, 927 (1997)] to verify our calculation model, one is at a temperature of 22 eV and a density of 10(-2) g/cm(3) and the other is at a temperature of 20 eV and a lower density of 10(-4) g/cm(3). It is shown that the strong CI can effectively change the oscillator strengths in contrast to the single configuration HF method. For both of the two simulated transmission spectra good agreement is obtained between the present MCHF results and the experimental data. Spectrally resolved opacities and Planck and Rosseland mean opacities are also calculated. For the isothermal sequence of T=20 eV, when the density decreases from 10(-2) to 10(-5) g/cm(3), the linewidth also decreases so that the iron transition arrays show more discrete line structures and the linewidth becomes very important to the Rosseland mean opacity.

Detailed-term-accounting approximation calculations of the radiative opacity of aluminum plasmas: a systematic study.

The spectrally resolved radiative opacity and the Rosseland and Planck mean opacities are calculated by using the detailed-term-accounting approximation for aluminum plasmas with varieties of density and temperature. The results are presented along a 40 eV isothermal sequence, a 0.01 g/cm(3) isodense sequence, and a sequence with average ionization degree Z* approximately 7.13. Particular attention is given to the influence of the detailed treatment of spectral lines on the Rosseland mean opacity under different thermodynamic conditions. The results show that at densities of 0.004 g/cm(3) and higher, the opacities are not very sensitive to the spectral linewidth within a reasonable range. As examples, the Rosseland mean opacity, which is most sensitive to the detailed linewidth, at 40 eV and 0.004 g/cm(3) changes no more than 15%, when we change the electron impact spectral linewidth artificially by reducing it by 50% or increasing it twice, and at 40 eV and 0.1 g/cm(3) it changes less than 5%. For comparison, we also carried out calculations by using an average atom model. For the Rosseland mean opacities, the two models show quite large differences, in particular at low densities, while for the Planck mean opacities the results of the two models are much closer.