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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2006
Acceleration of quasineutral plasma blocks by ponderomotive force induced by normally incident short laser pulse is studied here via 1D3V Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations. Very high current densities 109–1011 Acm−2 of accelerated ions are observed for maximum laser intensities in the range 1016–1018 Wcm−2 on solid hydrogen target. Ion acceleration process is traced here via evolution of ion density and of ion velocity distribution. Basic parameters of the accelerated plasma blocks are determined from temporally integrated ion distributions. Our results provide more detailed information than the previous analytical estimates (Hora, 2003) and the two-fluid 1D hydrodynamic simulations (Glowacz et al., 2004).