The influence of magnetised electron transport on thermal self-focusing and channelling of nanosecond laser beams
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Published version
Author(s)
Read, MP
Kingham, RJ
Bissell, JJ
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
The propagation of a nanosecond IR laser pulse through an under-dense (0.01 — 0.1ncr) magnetised laser-plasma is considered. The interplay between magnetised transport, B-field evolution and plasma hydrodynamics in the presence of a dynamically evolving beam are investigated by means of a paraxial wave solving module coupled to CTC, a 2D MHD code including Braginskii electron transport and IMPACT, a 2D implicit Vlasov-Fokker-Planck (VFP) code with magnetic fields. Magnetic fields have previously been shown to improve density channel formation for plasma waveguides however fluid simulations presented here indicate that Nernst advection can result in the rapid cavitation of magnetic field in the laser-heated region resulting in beam defocusing. Kinetic simulations indicate that strong non-local transport is present leading to the fluid code overestimating heat-flow and magnetic field advection and resulting in the recovery of beam channelling for the conditions considered.
Date Issued
2016-05-26
Date Acceptance
2016-03-21
Citation
Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2016, 717 (1)
ISSN
1742-6588
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Volume
717
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Source
9th International Conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (IFSA 2015)
Subjects
02 Physical Sciences
09 Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Start Date
2015-09-20
Finish Date
2015-09-25
Coverage Spatial
Seattle, WA, USA