Obtaining the pressure of more than 1 Gbar in solid-state density targets under deceleration of laser-accelerated ions

Abstract: We have analyzed the possibility of generating a substance with a high energy density under deceleration of protons accelerated by the laser-plasma method in a layer of a substance with a high charge – gold for the parameters of laser pulses that are planned to be obtained in the XCELS facility. It is shown that in this case the formation of a substance with the record pressure values of more than 1 Gbar at the solid density is possible, that corresponds to a specific energy release at the level of tens of MJ/g. The distinctive feature of the deceleration process with such a high specific energy release is that the properties of the decelerating substance change during the interaction. We have shown that the ionization multiplicity of gold ions reaches 40–50, and the temperature of the resulting plasma is 1 keV. It leads to the decrease in the stopping power of the substance and to the modification of the specific energy release curve.

Keywords: laser-plasma acceleration of ions, ionization losses, high energy densities.