Efficient ion acceleration and dense electron-positron plasma creation in ultra-high intensity laser-solid interactions

Abstract

The radiation pressure of next generation ultra-high intensity (>1023 W cm-2) lasers could efficiently accelerate ions to GeV energies. However, nonlinear quantum-electrodynamic effects play an important role in the interaction of these laser pulses with matter. Here we show that these effects may lead to the production of an extremely dense (∼1024 cm-3) pair-plasma which absorbs the laser pulse consequently reducing the accelerated ion energy and laser to ion conversion efficiency by up to 30%-50% and 50%-65%, respectively. Thus we identify the regimes of laser-matter interaction, where either ions are efficiently accelerated to high energy or dense pair-plasmas are produced as a guide for future experiments.