Speaker
Description
One of the side effects of high-intensity laser-target interactions under conditions typical for laser-induced proton acceleration is an undesirable strong emission of electromagnetic signals in the MHz to multi-GHz frequency range. The physical origin of these signals is clear, but a quantitative predictive approach is still missing. In our contribution we report on a numerical study of EMP generation, performed with the use of a numerical package allowing for electromagnetic signal computation in the presence of conducting elements in parallel with particle-in-cell modeling of charged particle propagation. We make some educated assumptions on the characteristics of fast electrons escaping from the laser target and we use this as an input for the commercial Computer Simulation Technology Studio Suite package. We then compute the electromagnetic fields in the vicinity of the target and the target holder under conditions corresponding to a real life experiment performed at the 10 TW fs laser in IPPLM. We perform also simulations for some arrangements aimed at mitigation of EMP emission. Results of numerical simulations are confronted with experimental results obtained at the IPPLM facility. Our results should be useful in guiding EMP measurements and mitigation attempts at high-power high-intensity laser facilities.
