TY - JOUR

T1 - Simulations of electromagnetic emission from colliding laser wakefields

AU - Timofeev, I. V.

AU - Berendeev, E. A.

AU - Annenkov, V. V.

AU - Volchok, E. P.

PY - 2020/2/26

Y1 - 2020/2/26

N2 - Electromagnetic emission at the second harmonic of the plasma frequency produced by nonlinear interaction of counterpropagating laser-driven potential plasma waves are studied using particle-in-cell simulations. This process has been recently proposed as a method for generating high-power tunable THz radiation with a narrow spectral line-width (Timofeev et al 2017 Phys. Plasmas 24 103106). In the present paper, we find the optimal conditions for demonstrating this phenomenon in a laboratory experiment that implies excitation of colliding wakefields by axially symmetric 830 nm Gaussian laser pulses with the total energy 0.2 J in a supersonic gas jet. It is shown that the emission mechanism based on the collision of different-size wakes is always accompanied with the mechanism of plasma antenna which begins to radiate electromagnetic waves after the build-up of periodic ion density modulation. Such additional emission makes hydrogen more attractive for this generating scheme than gases with heavier atoms.

AB - Electromagnetic emission at the second harmonic of the plasma frequency produced by nonlinear interaction of counterpropagating laser-driven potential plasma waves are studied using particle-in-cell simulations. This process has been recently proposed as a method for generating high-power tunable THz radiation with a narrow spectral line-width (Timofeev et al 2017 Phys. Plasmas 24 103106). In the present paper, we find the optimal conditions for demonstrating this phenomenon in a laboratory experiment that implies excitation of colliding wakefields by axially symmetric 830 nm Gaussian laser pulses with the total energy 0.2 J in a supersonic gas jet. It is shown that the emission mechanism based on the collision of different-size wakes is always accompanied with the mechanism of plasma antenna which begins to radiate electromagnetic waves after the build-up of periodic ion density modulation. Such additional emission makes hydrogen more attractive for this generating scheme than gases with heavier atoms.

KW - electromagnetic emission at plasma frequency harmonics

KW - plasma wakefields

KW - terahertz generation

KW - GENERATION

KW - RADIATION

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85082241360&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1088/1361-6587/ab74e6

DO - 10.1088/1361-6587/ab74e6

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85082241360

VL - 62

JO - Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

JF - Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

SN - 0741-3335

IS - 4

M1 - 045017

ER -