title: Dynamics and control of shock shells in the coulomb explosion of very large deuterium clusters.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: GoLP/Centro de Física dos Plasmas, Instituto Superior Técnico, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Peano
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Fonseca
authors.forename: L O
authors.initials: LO
authors.lastname: Silva