Department of Physics

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    Laser pulse dispersion in underdense plasma and associated ion acceleration by relativistic self-induced transparency
    (AIP, 2019-08) Holkundkar, Amol R.
    The propagation of laser pulses in the underdense plasma is a very crucial aspect of the laser-plasma interaction process. In this work, we explored the two regimes of laser propagation in the plasma, one with a0 < 1 and the other with ⁠. For the a0 < 1 case, we used a cold relativistic fluid model, wherein apart from immobile ions no further approximations are made. The effects of laser pulse amplitude, pulse duration, and plasma density are studied using the fluid model and compared with the expected scaling laws and also with the particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The agreement between the fluid model and the PIC simulations are found to be excellent. Furthermore, for the case, we used the PIC simulations alone. The delicate interplay between the conversion from the electromagnetic field energy to the longitudinal electrostatic fields results in dispersion, and so the redshift of the pump laser pulse. The dispersed pulse is then allowed to be incident on the subwavelength two-layer composite target. The underdense plasma before the target regulates the dispersion of the pulse. We observed an optimum pretarget plasma density which results in the acceleration of the ions from the secondary layer to ∼170 MeV by a ∼8 fs linearly polarized Gaussian laser pulse with ∼8.5 × 1020 W/cm2.
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    Chirp assisted ion acceleration via relativistic self-induced transparency
    (AIP, 2018-10) Holkundkar, Amol R.
    We study the effect of the chirped laser pulse on the transmission and associated ion acceleration by the sub-wavelength target. In the chirped laser pulses, the pulse frequency has a temporal variation about its fundamental frequency, which manifests to the temporal dependence of the critical density (nc). In this work, we used a chirp model which is beyond the linear approximation. For negatively (positively) chirped pulses, the high (low) frequency component of the pulse interacts with the target initially followed by the low (high) frequency component. The threshold plasma density for the transmission of the pulse is found to be higher for the negatively chirped laser pulses as compared to the unchirped or positively chirped pulses. The enhanced transmission of the negatively chirped pulses for higher densities (6nc) results in very efficient heating of the target electrons, creating a very stable and persistent longitudinal electrostatic field behind the target. The void of the electrons results in expansion of the target ions in either direction, resulting in the broad energy spectrum. We have introduced a very thin, low density (
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    Role of radial nonuniformities in the interaction of an intense laser with atomic clusters
    (AIP, 2008-01) Holkundkar, Amol R.
    A model for the interaction of an intense laser with atomic clusters is presented. The model takes into account the spatial nonuniformities of the cluster as it evolves in time. The cluster is treated as a stratified sphere having an arbitrary number of layers. Electric and magnetic fields are obtained by solving the vector Helmholtz equation coupled with one-dimensional Lagrangian hydrodynamics. Results are compared with the uniform density nanoplasma model. Enhancement in the amount of energy absorbed is seen over the uniform density model. In some cases the absorbed energy increases by as much as a factor of 40.
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    Molecular dynamic simulation for laser–cluster interaction
    (AIP, 2011-05) Holkundkar, Amol R.
    A three dimensional relativistic molecular dynamic model for studying the laser interaction with atomic clusters is presented. The model is used to simulate the interaction dynamics of deuterium, argon, and xenon clusters when irradiated by the short and high intensity laser pulses. The interaction of 82 Å argon cluster by 100 fs, 806 nm laser pulse with the peak intensity of 8 1015 W/cm2 is studied and compared with the experimental results. The maximum ion energy in this case is found to be about 200 keV. Ion energies along and perpendicular to laser polarization direction is calculated and asymmetry along laser polarization direction is detected which is further explained on the basis of charge flipping model. The effect of cluster density on the energetics of the laser–cluster interaction is also being studied, which provides a qualitative understanding of the presence of optimum cluster size for maximum ion energies.