"Creation of warm dense matter by depositing intense, laser-driven proton beams into solids"

 

 

 

Petawatt-class lasers enable the efficient production of exceptionally intense beams of protons and other ions with MeV energies. The intense beams in turn are effective means for heating materials rapidly and deeply to make warm, dense states in the laboratory which are only found elsewhere in exotic locales such as centers of heavy planets. In an ongoing series of experiments at two of the most energetic petawatt-class lasers in the world we have driven mega-Ampere proton beams and focused them to 100 micron beam width in order to study their transport in solid and foam samples. Beams of this intensity ionize and heat the sample to tens of eV- hot enough to modify the sample stopping power in transit, making Monte Carlo or static methods inadequate. We have used hybrid particle-in-cell simulations to explore this dynamic situation in Al and Cu samples for beams obtainable with current and next generation lasers.