Effect of the magnetization parameter on electron acceleration during relativistic magnetic reconnection in ultra-intense laser-produced plasma

Relativistic magnetic reconnection (MR) driven by two ultra-intense lasers with different spot separation distances is simulated by a three-dimensional (3D) kinetic relativistic particle-in-cell (PIC) code. We find that changing the separation distance between two laser spots can lead to different magnetization parameters of the laser plasma environment. As the separation distance becomes larger, the magnetization parameter σ becomes smaller. The electrons are accelerated in these MR processes and their energy spectra can be fitted with double power-law spectra whose index will increase with increasing separation distance. Moreover, the collisionless shocks' contribution to energetic electrons is close to the magnetic reconnection contribution with σ decreasing, which results in a steeper electron energy spectrum. Basing on the 3D outflow momentum configuration, the energetic electron spectra are recounted and their spectrum index is close to 1 in these three cases because the magnetization parameter σ is very high in the 3D outflow area.     

强激光实验室天体物理介绍

实验室天体物理是交叉于高能量密度等离子体物理学与天体物理学之间的一个新的学科生长点。利用强激光装置可以在实验室创造与某些天体或天体周围相似的极端物理环境，这样的实验条件前所未有，且与天体物理中诸多重要的物理现象直接对应。通过近距、主动、参数可控的研究，实验室天体物理有助于解决目前天体物理和等离子体物理中的一些关键的、共性的问题，并有望取得突破性成果。针对近年来国内外在该领域取得的最新研究进展进行介绍，并就将来可能开展的研究方向进行展望。     

短脉冲强激光驱动磁重联过程的靶后电势分布特征

超短超强激光因其极端的物理参数范围以及可用于研究相对论等离子体等特征,成为当前激光驱动磁重联物理的研究热点.通常采用两路激光与平面靶相互作用实现激光驱动磁重联,然而在实验诊断中,由于激光等离子体自身的复杂性导致很难辨别磁重联的物理特征.本文对两路短脉冲激光驱动平面靶磁重联进行了数值模拟,重点分析了靶后电势分布特征和磁重联之间的关系.模拟结果显示,靶后电势分布可以直接影响被加速离子在探测面上的空间分布,因此可用来直接诊断短脉冲激光驱动磁重联实验.