Plasma physics with intense laser and ion beams

The unique combination of an intense heavy ion beam and a high-energy Nd:glass laser system at Gesellschaft fuer Schwerionenforschung (GSI-Darmstadt) facilitates pioneering beam-plasma interaction experiments and thus allows to address basic physics issues associated with heavy ion-driven inertial fusion. The deposition power of the intense heavy ion beam from the synchrotron has recently been increased to 1 kJ/g. The hydrodynamic response of solid targets was measured. A comparison with detailed numerical simulations attributes the target response to a pressure pulse of 3 GPa at a maximum temperature of 2500 K. Beam plasma interaction experiments to measure the stopping power of laser plasmas for heavy ion beams have been performed and show an increased energy loss for Ni ions in a 60 eV dense carbon plasma. Subsequently performed time-resolved charge-state measurements indicate that the increased stopping power can partially be attributed to a high charge state of the beam ions traversing the plasma. Improved plasma diagnostic by high-resolution spectroscopy revealed the unexpected existence of He-like resonance and intercombination lines (He_α = 1s2p³P₁-1s² and Y_α = 1s2p³P₁-1s²) of fluorine even for a modest laser intensity of 5 × 10¹¹ W/cm².