Electron acceleration under the action of a laser pulse onto ionizing plasma corona

Abstract

The performed simulations in contrast to the previous studies have shown that the generation of the wake wave in the self-modulational regime, its wavebreaking with subsequent particle injection and acceleration occur for the initially Gaussian envelope of the laser pulse if the processes of tunnelling ionization are taken into account. The self-modulation evolve faster in comparison to the case without ionization because of the abrupt density inhomogeneities which appear at the front edge of the laser pulse because of ionization. These inhomogeneities lead to the three wave character of the resonance modulational instability. The ionization blueshifting of the laser light is observed in the simulations.