Investigation of Phase-mixing Phenomenon in Presence of Homogeneous and Inhomogeneous Magnetic Fields in the Ultra-short Laser Pulse Interaction with Plasma Using 2D PIC Simulation

Investigation of plasma heating is of crucial importance because of its extensive applications including plasma preheating in inertial confinement fusion and magnetic confinement fusion. By propagation of a high-power ultra-short laser pulse through the underdense plasma, the plasma wave is excited in the longitudinal direction behind the laser pulse due to the laser pondermotive force. The laser energy is transferred to the plasma environment via the laser plasma interaction with the particles, so leading to plasma heating. By increasing the laser intensity or plasma density, the wave-breaking phenomenon occurs. The maximum plasma heating occurs in the wave-breaking amplitude. In this paper, the effects of applying a homogenous magnetic field on the plasma wave excited by the propagation of high-power ultra-short laser pulse in the plasma in the amplitudes below the wave-breaking amplitude is investigated, using the 2D PIC simulation method. The results show that the application of this field causes the excited wave to distort and break due to the phase-mixing phenomenon. Moreover, the simulation results show that by applying an inhomogeneous magnetic field, the wave-breaking effects appear sooner than the homogenous one. Therefore, in the moderate laser intensities and low plasma densities, it is possible to gain the maximum heating of plasma by applying the homogenous and inhomogeneous magnetic fields.