AAS 196th Meeting, June 2000
Session 22. Ushering in a New Era: Laboratory Astrophysics with Intense Lasers
Topical Session Oral, Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 8:30-10:00am, 10:45am-12:30pm, 2:00-3:30pm, 3:45-5:30pm, Highland A/K

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[22.09] Generating Relativistic and Pair Plasmas with Ultraintense Lasers

E. Liang (Rice University), S. Wilks (LLNL)

Laser intensities exceeding 1.e19 Watts/cm2 generate copious relativistic superthermal electrons. When such electrons interact with hi-Z ions they produce pairs prolifically. When such pairs stream out of the target ion plasma they will form an almost pure pair corona, the nearest laboratory analog of a relativistic fireball hypothesized to exist in gamma-ray bursts. We provide detailed PIC simulation results of the dynamics of such a pair corona, and discuss its astrophysical applications.

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