Weakly relativistic plasma expansion

Plasma expansion is an important physical process that takes place in laser interactions with solid targets. Within a self-similar model for the hydrodynamical multi-fluid equations, we investigated the expansion of both dense and under-dense plasmas. The weakly relativistic electrons are produced by ultra-intense laser pulses, while ions are supposed to be in a non-relativistic regime. Numerical investigations have shown that relativistic effects are important for under-dense plasma and are characterized by a finite ion front velocity. Dense plasma expansion is found to be governed mainly by quantum contributions in the fluid equations that originate from the degenerate pressure in addition to the nonlinear contributions from exchange and correlation potentials. The quantum degeneracy parameter profile provides clues to set the limit between under-dense and dense relativistic plasma expansions at a given density and temperature. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.