title: Magnetically assisted fast ignition.
abstract: Fast ignition (FI) is investigated via integrated particle-in-cell simulation including both generation and transport of fast electrons, where petawatt ignition lasers of 2 ps and compressed targets of a peak density of 300  g cm(-3) and areal density of 0.49  g cm(-2) at the core are taken. When a 20 MG static magnetic field is imposed across a conventional cone-free target, the energy coupling from the laser to the core is enhanced by sevenfold and reaches 14%. This value even exceeds that obtained using a cone-inserted target, suggesting that the magnetically assisted scheme may be a viable alternative for FI. With this scheme, it is demonstrated that two counterpropagating, 6 ps, 6 kJ lasers along the magnetic field transfer 12% of their energy to the core, which is then heated to 3 keV.
authors.affiliation: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Institute for Advanced Simulation, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, D-52425 Jülich, Germany and Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, CAS, Beijing 100190, China and IFSA Collaborative Innovation Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: W-M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Institute for Advanced Simulation, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, D-52425 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gibbon
authors.affiliation: SUPA, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, United Kingdom and Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (MoE) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China and IFSA Collaborative Innovation Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: Z-M
authors.initials: ZM
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.affiliation: Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, CAS, Beijing 100190, China and IFSA Collaborative Innovation Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: Y-T
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Li