Discrimination method of etch pits created by laser-accelerated protons and recoiled protons by photo-neutrons using CR-39

Kanasaki, Masato; Fukuda, Yuji; Kondo, Kiminori; Oda, Keiji*; Yamauchi, Tomoya*

In laser-driven ion acceleration experiments using the cluster-gas targets, a significant amount of fast electrons, which drives the ion acceleration, are produced along with high energy ions with several-tens of MeV. In our recent experiment using CO clusters embedded in H gas conducted with the J-KAREN laser facility (1 J, 40 fs) at JAEA-KPSI, the maximum energy of electrons reaches up to 200 MeV. Such fast electrons can produce photo-neutrons via bremsstrahlung processes followed by photo-nuclear reactions. When the CR-39 is exposed to photo-neutrons, it records etchable tracks of generated ions depending on their species and energy as background noises. In order to diagnose the laser-accelerated protons precisely using CR-39, we have developed the discrimination method for laser-accelerated protons and photo-neutrons on CR-39 based on the incident angle and incident energy.