High-intensity laser interactions with mass-limited solid targets and implications for fast-ignition experiments on OMEGA EP

The modeling of petawatt laser-generated hot electrons in mass-limited solid-foil-target interactions at ''relativistic'' laser intensities is presented using copper targets and parameters motivated by recent experiments at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Petawatt and 100-TW facilities [Theobald et al., Phys. Plasmas 13, 043102 (2006)]. Electron refluxing allows a unique determination of the laser-electron conversion efficiency and a test with simulations. Good agreement between experiments and simulations is found for conversion efficiencies of 10%