Using intense laser-driven proton beams to produce warm, dense materials

Proton beam generation using intense lasers was kickstarted as a field of research by the invention of chirped-pulse amplified (CPA) lasers and has been studied extensively with now ubiquitous, sub-picosecond terawatt-class CPA lasers. Forthcoming kilojoule, petawatt class lasers will drive proton beams having 10s of J energy- sufficient to be the pump in innovative experiments such as isochoric heating to warm (>100 eV), dense matter states. Beams with MeV to 10s of MeV particle energy can be produced with orders of magnitude higher charge density than bunches at conventional accelerator facilities. Additionally, the laser-produced beams have picoseconds duration and can be focused to <100 microns. In this talk I will briefly discuss results of hybrid particle-in-cell / fluid simulations showing intensity-dependent transport phenomena in warm targets. Then, I will share experimental methods for delivering intense proton beams to heat a secondary target and diagnostics that are being developed to characterize the heated targets.
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Chris McGuffey began studying particle acceleration with intense lasers in the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan. In 2011 he joined the High Energy Density Physics group at the University of California San Diego as a postdoc. He remains at UCSD as an assistant project scientist, studying ion acceleration, ion beam heating, and spectroscopy.