Relativistic shock waves in the laboratory
Due to the recent developments in high power lasers in the multi-petawatt domain it seems now feasible to accelerate a micro-foil to relativistic velocities. In this paper, we calculate analytically the high velocities achieved by the ponderomotive force of the irradiating laser. The accelerated foi...
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Published in | Laser and particle beams Vol. 31; no. 1; pp. 113 - 122 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York, USA
Cambridge University Press
01.03.2013
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Due to the recent developments in high power lasers in the multi-petawatt domain it seems now feasible to accelerate a micro-foil to relativistic velocities. In this paper, we calculate analytically the high velocities achieved by the ponderomotive force of the irradiating laser. The accelerated foil collides with a second foil resulting in the creation of the relativistic shock waves. The density, pressure, temperature, and shock wave velocities are calculated within the context of relativistic fluid dynamics. The calculated thermodynamic parameters that are achieved in these collisions are enormous. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0263-0346 1469-803X |
DOI: | 10.1017/S0263034612000912 |