"Light sail" acceleration reexamined.
The dynamics of the acceleration of ultrathin foil targets by the radiation pressure of superintense, circularly polarized laser pulses is investigated by analytical modeling and particle-in-cell simulations. By addressing self-induced transparency and charge separation effects, it is shown that for "optimal" values of the foil thickness only a thin layer at the rear side is accelerated by radiation pressure. The simple "light sail" model gives a good estimate of the energy per nucleon, but overestimates the conversion efficiency of laser energy into monoenergetic ions.
CNR/INFM/polyLAB, Pisa, Italy. macchi@df.unipi.it
Andrea
A
Macchi
Silvia
S
Veghini
Francesco
F
Pegoraro