The interaction of intense ultrashort laser pulses with cryogenic He planar jets

We study the interaction of intense ultrashort laser pulses with cryogenic He planar jets, i.e., slabs, using 2D3V relativistic particle-in-cell simulations. Of particular interest are laser intensities $\left({10}^{15}\text{--}{10}^{20}\right)$ W cm⁻², pulse lengths ≤100 fs, and the wave length regime ∼800 nm for which the slabs are initially transparent and subsequently inhomogeneously ionized. Pulses $⩾{10}^{16}$ W cm⁻² are found to drive ionization along the slab and outside the laser spot, the ionization front propagates along the slab at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. Within the ionized region, there is a highly transient field which is a result of the charge-neutralizing disturbance at the slab-vacuum interface and which may be interpreted in terms of a two-surface-wave decay. The ionized region is predicted to reach solid-like densities and temperatures of few to hundreds of eV, i.e., it belongs to warm and hot dense matter regimes. Such extreme conditions are relevant for high-energy densities as found, e.g., in shock-wave experiments and inertial confinement fusion studies. The temporal evolution of the ionization is studied considering theoretically a pump–probe x-ray Thomson scattering scheme. We observe plasmon and non-collective modes that are generated in the slab, and their amplitude is proportional to the ionized volume. Our theoretical findings could be tested at free-electron laser facilities such as FLASH and the European XFEL (Hamburg) and the LCLS (Stanford). (paper)