Towards a novel laser-driven method of exotic nuclei extraction-acceleration for fundamental physics and technology

Nishiuchi, Mamiko*; Sakaki, Hironao*; Esirkepov, T. Zh.*; Nishio, Katsuhisa; Pikuz, T. A.*; Faenov, A. Ya.*; Skobelev, I. Yu.*; Orlandi, R.; Pirozhkov, A. S.*; Sagisaka, Akito*; et al.

Plasma Physics Reports, 42(4), p.327 - 337, 2016/04

https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063780X1604005X

A combination of a petawatt laser and nuclear physics techniques can crucially facilitate the measurement of exotic nuclei properties. With numerical simulations and laser-driven experiments we show prospects for the Laser-driven Exotic Nuclei extraction-acceleration method proposed in [M. Nishiuchi et al., Phys. Plasmas 22, 033107 (2015)]: a femtosecond petawatt laser, irradiating a target bombarded by an external ion beam, extracts from the target and accelerates to few GeV highly charged short-lived heavy exotic nuclei created in the target via nuclear reactions.

The Precise energy spectra measurement of laser-accelerated MeV/n-class high-Z ions and protons using CR-39 detectors

Kanasaki, Masato; Jinno, Satoshi*; Sakaki, Hironao; Kondo, Kiminori; Oda, Keiji*; Yamauchi, Tomoya*; Fukuda, Yuji

Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, 58(3), p.034013_1 - 034013_6, 2016/03

https://doi.org/10.1088/0741-3335/58/3/034013

In order to understand the synergetic interplay between the Coulomb explosion of clusters and the background gas dynamics, we have conducted ion acceleration experiments using CO clusters (250 nm in dia.) embedded in background H gas with the J-KAREN laser (1 J, 40 fs, 10 contrast) at JAEA-KPSI. By a careful analysis of etch pit positions on CR-39 and their structures including the etch pit growth behavior analysis with the multi-step etching technique, energy spectra for protons from the background gas and carbon/oxygen ions from the clusters are obtained separately. The maximum energies of protons and carbon/oxygen ions are determined as 1.6 MeV and 1.1 MeV/u, respectively. Based on the experimental results, the acceleration mechanism of the background gas ions induced by Coulomb explosion of clusters is discussed with the help from numerical simulations which employ a particle-in-cell (PIC) method including relaxation and ionization processes of plasma particles.

Revealing the second harmonic generation in a femtosecond laser-driven cluster-based plasma by analyzing shapes of Ar XVII spectral lines

Oks, E.*; Dalimier, E.*; Faenov, A.*; Pikuz, T.*; Fukuda, Yuji; Andreev, A.*; Koga, J. K.; Sakaki, Hironao; Kotaki, Hideyuki; Pirozhkov, A. S.; et al.

Optics Express (Internet), 23(25), p.31991 - 32005, 2015/12

https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.23.031991

We present experiments dealing with a femtosecond laser-driven cluster-based plasma, where by analyzing the nonlinear phenomenon of satellites of spectral lines of Ar XVII, we revealed the nonlinear phenomenon of the generation of the second harmonic of the laser frequency. For performing this analysis we developed new results in the theory of satellites of spectral lines. From such lineshape analysis we found, in particular, that the efficiency of converting the short (40 fs) intense (310 W/cm) incident laser light into the second harmonic was 2%. This result is in the excellent agreement with the 2-Dimensional Particle-In-Cell (2D PIC) simulation that we also performed. There is also an order of magnitude agreement between the thresholds for the SHG found from the line shape analysis and from the 2D PIC simulations.

Stochastic regimes in the driven oscillator with a step-like nonlinearity

Bulanov, S. V.; Yogo, Akifumi*; Esirkepov, T. Z.; Koga, J. K.; Bulanov, S. S.*; Kondo, Kiminori; Kando, Masaki

Physics of Plasmas, 22(6), p.063108_1 - 063108_11, 2015/06

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4922679

Laser-driven multi-charged heavy ion beam acceleration

Nishiuchi, Mamiko; Sakaki, Hironao; Esirkepov, T. Z.; Nishio, Katsuhisa; Pikuz, T. A.*; Faenov, A. Ya.*; Pirozhkov, A. S.; Sagisaka, Akito; Ogura, Koichi; Kanasaki, Masato; et al.

Research Using Extreme Light; Entering New Frontiers with Petawatt-Class Lasers II (Proceedings of SPIE, Vol.9515), p.95151D_1 - 95151D_4, 2015/06

https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2179204

Experimental demonstration of multi-charged heavy ion acceleration from the interaction between the ultra-intense short pulse laser system and the metal target is presented. The laser pulse of 10 J laser energy, 36 fs pulse width, and the contrast level of 10 from 200 TW class Ti:sapphire J-KAREN laser system at JAEA is used in the experiment. Almost fully stripped Fe ions accelerated up to 0.9 GeV are demonstrated. This is achieved by the high intensity laser field of 10Wcm interacting with the solid density target. The demonstrated iron ions with high charge to mass ratio (Q/M) is difficult to be achieved by the conventional heavy ion source technique in the accelerators.

High-contrast, high-intensity petawatt-class laser and applications

Kiriyama, Hiromitsu; Mori, Michiaki; Pirozhkov, A. S.; Ogura, Koichi; Sagisaka, Akito; Kon, Akira; Esirkepov, T. Z.; Hayashi, Yukio; Kotaki, Hideyuki; Kanasaki, Masato*; et al.

IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 21(1), p.1601118_1 - 1601118_18, 2015/01

https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTQE.2014.2336774

This paper reviews the development of a high-contrast high-intensity petawatt-class Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) laser for research on high field science. We discuss in detail the design, performance and characterization of the laser. We also describe the on-going upgrade of the laser system and some applications for the laser in relativistic dominated laser-matter interactions.

Development of an apparatus for characterization of cluster-gas targets for laser-driven particle accelerations

Jinno, Satoshi; Fukuda, Yuji; Sakaki, Hironao; Yogo, Akifumi; Kanasaki, Masato; Kondo, Kiminori; Faenov, A. Y.; Skobelev, I. Yu.*; Pikuz, T.; Boldarev, A. S.*; et al.

Progress in Ultrafast Intense Laser Science XI; Springer Series in Chemical Physics, Vol.109, p.215 - 233, 2015/00

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06731-5_10

Clusters formed in supersonic gas expansion through a three-staged conical nozzle have been verified by measuring the angular distribution of the light scattered from cluster target. The size distirbutions of the clusters are calculated based on the Mie theory. The reliability of the size measurement is verified to be an experimental error of 10% using standard particles. The mean sizes of CO clusters for the cases of CO/H and CO/He mixed-gas targets are estimated to be 0.26 m and 0.22 m, respectively. For the CO/H, the cluster density is estimated to be 5.5 clusters/cm by measuring the attenuation of the laser beam intensity. Furthermore, total gas density profiles are obtained via the Abel inversion from the phase shift of the light passing through the target using an interferometer. The variation of the cluster mass fraction along the radial direction of the target is almost constant, which is consistent with a Boldarev's model.

High order harmonics from relativistic electron spikes

Pirozhkov, A. S.; Kando, Masaki; Esirkepov, T. Z.; Gallegos, P.*; Ahmed, H.*; Ragozin, E. N.*; Faenov, A. Ya.*; Pikuz, T. A.*; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Sagisaka, Akito; et al.

New Journal of Physics (Internet), 16(9), p.093003_1 - 093003_30, 2014/09

https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/16/9/093003

Prepulse and amplified spontaneous emission effects on the interaction of a petawatt class laser with thin solid targets

Esirkepov, T. Z.; Koga, J. K.; Sunahara, Atsushi*; Morita, Toshimasa; Nishikino, Masaharu; Kageyama, Kei*; Nagatomo, Hideo*; Nishihara, Katsunobu; Sagisaka, Akito; Kotaki, Hideyuki; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 745, p.150 - 163, 2014/05

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2014.01.056

Current status and future prospects of "J-KAREN"; High contrast, high intensity laser for studying relativistic laser-matter interactions

Kiriyama, Hiromitsu; Mori, Michiaki; Okada, Hajime; Shimomura, Takuya; Nakai, Yoshiki*; Tanoue, Manabu; Kondo, Shuji; Kanazawa, Shuhei; Yogo, Akifumi; Sagisaka, Akito; et al.

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 1, p.015095_1 - 015095_5, 2014/03

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.1.015095

We present the design and characterization of a high-contrast, petawatt-class Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) laser system. Two saturable absorbers and low-gain optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) preamplifier in the double CPA laser chain have improved the temporal contrast to 1.410 on the subnanosecond time scale at 70 terawatt level. Final uncompressed broadband pulse energy is 28 J, indicating the potential for reaching peak power near 600 terawatt. We also discuss our upgrade to over petawatt level at a 0.1 Hz repetition rate briefly.