RESUMEN
Experimental investigations of the late-time ion structures formed in the wake of an ultrashort, intense laser pulse propagating in a tenuous plasma have been performed using the proton imaging technique. The pattern found in the wake of the laser pulse shows unexpectedly regular modulations inside a long, finite width channel. On the basis of extensive particle in cell simulations of the plasma evolution in the wake of the pulse, we interpret this pattern as due to ion modulations developed during a two-stream instability excited by the return electric current generated by the wakefield.
RESUMEN
The generation of electron surface oscillations in overdense plasmas irradiated at normal incidence by an intense laser pulse is investigated. Two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell simulations show a transition from a planar, electrostatic oscillation at 2 omega, with omega the laser frequency, to a 2D electromagnetic oscillation at frequency omega and wave vector k > omega/c. A new electron parametric instability, involving the decay of a 1D electrostatic oscillation into two surface waves, is introduced to explain the basic features of the 2D oscillations. This effect leads to the rippling of the plasma surface within a few laser cycles, and is likely to have a strong impact on laser interaction with solid targets.
RESUMEN
We investigate the interaction of a high intensity ultrashort laser pulse with an underdense collisionless plasma in the regime where the Langmuir wake wave excited behind the laser pulse is loaded by fast particle beams, formed during the wake wave breaking. The beam loading causes the deterioration of the central part of the wake wave near the pulse axis, and the formation of bunches of sharply focalized ultrarelativistic electrons. The bunches of electrons generate a fast propagating magnetic field, which we interpret in terms of the magnetic component of the Lienard-Wiechert potential of a moving electric charge.
