Preplasma effects on the generation of high-energy protons in ultraintense laser interaction with foil targets

It is shown that the intense quasistatic electric and magnetic fields self-generated near the axis of the laser-driven channel in an appropriately profiled preplasma during ultraintense laser interaction with a thin target can create dense relativistic electron bunches. The latter easily penetrate through the target and can greatly enhance the sheath field at the rear, resulting in significant increase in the laser-to-ion energy conversion efficiency and the maximum energy of the target normal sheath accelerated ions. Particle-in-cell simulations show that with a hydrogen targets a proton beam of peak energy ∼38 MeV and energy conversion efficiency ≥6.5% can be produced by a linearly polarized 5 × 1019 W/cm2 laser. An analytical model is also proposed and its results agree well with those of the simulations