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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 92 » Issue 9
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 095001 (2004) [4 pages]

High-Intensity-Laser-Driven Z Pinches

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F. N. Beg1,2,*, E. L. Clark1,3, M. S. Wei1, A. E. Dangor1, R. G. Evans1,3, A. Gopal1, K. L. Lancaster1,4, K. W. D. Ledingham3,5, P. McKenna5, P. A. Norreys4, M. Tatarakis1, M. Zepf6, and K. Krushelnick1
1The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom
2Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, San Diego, California 92093-0411, USA
3AWE plc, Aldermaston, Reading RG7 4PR, United Kingdom
4Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Oxon OX11 0QX, United Kingdom
5Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, United Kingdom
6Department of Physics, The Queen’s University, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom

Received 12 June 2003; published 2 March 2004

Experiments were performed in which ultrahigh intensity laser pulses (I>5×1019  W  cm-2) were used to irradiate thin wire targets. It was observed that such interactions generate a large number of relativistic electrons which escape the target and induce multimega ampere return currents within the wire. MHD instabilities can subsequently be observed in the pinching plasma along with field emission of electrons from nearby objects. Coherent optical transition radiation from adjacent objects was also observed.

© 2004 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.095001
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.095001
PACS:
52.38.Hb, 52.35.Qz, 52.38.Kd

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Electronic address: fnb@imperial.ac.uk

 
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