title: Photonuclear fission from high energy electrons from ultraintense laser-solid interactions
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA.
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Cowan
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Hunt
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Wilks
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Perry
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Fountain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hatchett
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Key
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Parnell
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Pennington
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Snavely
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Takahashi