Photonuclear fission from high energy electrons from ultraintense laser-solid interactions
A new regime of laser-matter interactions in which the quiver motion of plasma electrons is fully relativistic, with energies extending well above the threshold for nuclear processes, is studied using a petawatt laser system. In solid target experiments with focused intensities exceeding 10(20) W/cm(2), high energy electron generation, hard bremsstrahlung, and nuclear phenomena have been observed. We report here a quantitative comparison of the high energy electrons and the bremsstrahlung spectrum, as measured by photonuclear reaction yields, including the photoinduced fission of 238U.
Cowan
TE
University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA.
Hunt
AW
Phillips
TW
Wilks
SC
Perry
MD
Brown
C
Fountain
W
Hatchett
S
Johnson
J
Key
MH
Parnell
T
Pennington
DM
Snavely
RA
Takahashi
Y