Dynamics and control of shock shells in the coulomb explosion of very large deuterium clusters.
The explosion dynamics of very large (approximately 10(6)-10(7) atoms) deuterium clusters irradiated by ultraintense laser pulses (I approximately 10(18) W/cm(2)) is analyzed self-consistently with one-to-one three-dimensional and two-dimensional fully relativistic particle-in-cell simulations. Small-scale shock shells in the expanding ion cloud are observed. A technique to induce the formation of large shock shells inside a single cluster, increasing the probability of intracluster nuclear reactions, is proposed and demonstrated.
Peano
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GoLP/Centro de Física dos Plasmas, Instituto Superior Técnico, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal.
Fonseca
R A
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Silva
L O
LO