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Relativistic shock waves in the laboratory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2013

Shalom Eliezer ,
Jose Maria Martinez Val  and
Shirly Vinikman Pinhasi
Shalom Eliezer*
Affiliation:
Nuclear Fusion Institute, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain Applied Physics Division, Soreq NRC, Yavne, Israel
Jose Maria Martinez Val
Affiliation:
Nuclear Fusion Institute, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Shirly Vinikman Pinhasi
Affiliation:
Applied Physics Division, Soreq NRC, Yavne, Israel
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Shalom Eliezer, Soreq. E-mail: shalom.eliezer@gmail.com
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Abstract

Due to the recent developments in high power lasers in the multi-petawatt domain it seems now feasible to accelerate a micro-foil to relativistic velocities. In this paper, we calculate analytically the high velocities achieved by the ponderomotive force of the irradiating laser. The accelerated foil collides with a second foil resulting in the creation of the relativistic shock waves. The density, pressure, temperature, and shock wave velocities are calculated within the context of relativistic fluid dynamics. The calculated thermodynamic parameters that are achieved in these collisions are enormous.

Type
Research Article
Information
Laser and Particle Beams , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 113 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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