46th International Workshop on High Energy Density Physics with Intense Ion and Laser Beams

High power laser systems driving relativistic plasmas have applications in the generation of high energy, short duration particle and photon secondary sources. These mechanisms are typically extremely sensitive to laser contrast - pre-pulses and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) that can trigger an expanding plasma long before the peak intensity is reached. As we enter the multi-petawatt...

Fast neutron-induced nuclear reactions are crucial for advancing our understanding of fundamental nuclear processes, stellar nucleosynthesis, and applications, including reactor safety, medical isotope production, and materials research. As many research reactors are being phased out, compact accelerator-based neutron sources are becoming increasingly important. Laser-driven neutron sources...

Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan

Laser-driven proton acceleration has long been limited by an apparent trade-off between laser-to-ion conversion efficiency and maximum particle energy. While target-normal-sheath acceleration (TNSA) remains robust, it typically suffers from low efficiency and thermal-like spectra at the multi-MeV level. Here we...

With the goal of investigating the creation of extremely neutron rich isotopes around the waiting point of the rapid neutron capture process (r-process) at N=126, Habs et al. [1] proposed the so-called fission-fusion reaction mechanism. This mechanism exploits the inherently nearly solid-state bunch density of laser ion accelerated ions, resulting high cross-sections for the creation of exotic...