Isochoric heating of matter by laser-accelerated high-energy protons

We describe an experiment on isochoric heating of matter by intense laser-accelerated protons. The experiment was performed using the LULI 100 TW facility with 15-20 J on target energy and > 1019 W.cm-2 maximum focused intensity. Focusing the laser on a 10 micron thick Au foil, we accelerated forward a laminar proton beam with a maximum energy of 16 MeV. This proton beam irradiated and heated a secondary target positioned after a variable vacuum gap. The heating was diagnosed by 1- and 2-dimensional time-resolved measurements of the optical self-emission of the heated target rear-surface. Detailed results as a function of the Z and the thickness of the secondary target as well as analysis, including a full modelling of the target heating with a 2-dimensional hydro-code (DUED) coupled to a proton energy deposition code, were obtained. We have also studied the efficiency of heating as a function of the primary target topology, i.e. either flat, which results in a diverging proton beam, or curved, which has the ability of focusing partly the proton beam. (authors)