title: Relativistic laser channeling in plasmas for fast ignition.
abstract: We report an experimental observation suggesting plasma channel formation by focusing a relativistic laser pulse into a long-scale-length preformed plasma. The channel direction coincides with the laser axis. Laser light transmittance measurement indicates laser channeling into the high-density plasma with relativistic self-focusing. A three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation reproduces the plasma channel and reveals that the collimated hot-electron beam is generated along the laser axis in the laser channeling. These findings hold the promising possibility of fast heating a dense fuel plasma with a relativistic laser pulse.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan. lal@siom.ac.cn
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authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Lei
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authors.lastname: Freeman
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authors.lastname: Matsuoka
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authors.lastname: Nagatomo
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authors.lastname: Yang
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authors.lastname: Zheng
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authors.lastname: Tanaka