Time-resolved study of holeboring in realistic experimental conditions

The evolution of dense plasmas prior to the arrival of the peak of the laser irradiation is critical to understanding relativistic laser plasma interactions. The spectral properties of a reflected laser pulse after the interaction with a plasma can be used to gain insights about the interaction itself, whereas the effect of holeboring has a predominant role. Here we developed an analytical model, describing the non-relativistic temporal evolution of the holeboring velocity in the presence of an arbitrary overdense plasma density and laser intensity profile. We verify this using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, showing a major influence on the holeboring dynamic depending on the density profile. The influence on the reflected laser pulse has been verified during an experiment at the PHELIX laser. We show that this enables the possibility to determine the sub-micrometer scale length of the preplasma by measuring the maximum holeboring velocity and acceleration during the laser-plasma interaction.

Cylindrical and Spherical Nucleus-Acoustic Solitary and Shock Waves in Degenerate Electron-Nucleus Plasmas

The basic characteristics of cylindrical as well as spherical solitary and shock waves in degenerate electron-nucleus plasmas are theoretically investigated. The electron species is assumed to be cold, ultra-relativistically degenerate, negatively charged gas, whereas the nucleus species is considered a cold, non-degenerate, positively charged, viscous fluid. The reductive perturbation technique is utilized in order to reduce the basic equations (governing the degenerate electron-nucleus plasmas under consideration) to the modified Korteweg-de Vries and Burgers equations. The latter are numerically solved and analyzed to detect the basic characteristics of solitary and shock waves in such electron-nucleus plasmas. The nonlinear nucleus-acoustic waves are found to be propagated in the form of solitary as well as shock waves in such degenerate electron-nucleus plasmas. Their basic properties as well as their time evolution are significantly modified by the effects of cylindrical as well as spherical geometries. The results of this study is expected to be applicable not only to astrophysical compact objects, but also to ultra-cold dense plasmas produced in laboratory.