Laser-driven collisionless shock acceleration of protons
Paper in proceeding, 2016

Experimental and numerical results have shown that collisionless shock acceleration is promis- ing for generation of high energy proton beams. There are many potential applications for such beams, for example: isotope generation for medical applications, ion therapy and proton radio- graphy. In this work, we use 1D1P Eulerian Vlasov-Maxwell simulations to study shock wave acceleration. Vlasov-Maxwell modeling allows for high resolution of the distribution function and is highly suitable in cases where effects of low-density tails in the distribution function need to be resolved accurately. We find that combining collisionless shock acceleration with a strong, quasi-stationary sheath- field may be a way to reach even higher maximum proton energies and optimize the ion spec- trum. We show that a layered plasma target with a combination of light and heavy ions leads to a strong quasi-static sheath-field, which induces an enhancement of the energy of shock-wave accelerated ions, without broadening their energy spectrum, if the heavy ion layer has high density.

Author

Benjamin Svedung Wettervik

Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic and Plasma Physics

Timothy Dubois

Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic and Plasma Physics

Tünde Fülöp

Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic and Plasma Physics

43rd European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics, EPS 2016

43rd European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics, EPS 2016
Leuven, Belgium,

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Roots

Basic sciences

Subject Categories

Fusion, Plasma and Space Physics

More information

Latest update

7/30/2021