P. Kordell, C. Zulick, A. E. Hussein, A. Arefiev, T. Batson, J. Cobble, V. Glebov, D. Haberberger, C. Stoeckl, P. M. Nilson, K. Krushelnick, and L. Willingale, "Quasi-monoenergetic ion acceleration and neutron generation from laser-driven transverse collisionless shocks", Phys. Plasmas 31, 103110 (2024).
Experiments using the OMEGA EP laser system were performed to study collisionless shock acceleration of ions driven by the interaction of a relativistically intense laser pulse with underdense plasma. The energy spectrum of accelerated ions in the direction transverse to laser propagation is measured to have several narrow-band peaks which are quasi-monoenergetic with a typical energy bandwidth of 3%. In deuterium plasmas, these ions generate a significant number of fast fusion neutrons. Particle-in-cell simulations confirm that these ions were accelerated by the interaction of transverse shocks and that the appearance of quasi-monoenergetic spectral features depends on the growth of an ion-electron two-stream instability during the interaction.
