The analytic model of a laser-accelerated plasma target and its stability

A self-consistent kinetic theory of a laser-accelerated plasma target with distributed electron/ion densities is developed. The simplified model assumes that after an initial transition period the bulk of cold ions are uniformly accelerated by the self-consistent electric field generated by hot electrons trapped in combined ponderomotive and electrostatic potentials. Several distinct target regions (non-neutral ion tail, non-neutral electron sheath, and neutral plasma bulk) are identified and analytically described. It is shown analytically that such laser-accelerated finite-thickness target is susceptible to Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability. Particle-in-cell simulations of the seeded perturbations of the plasma target reveal that, for ultra-relativistic laser intensities, the growth rate of the RT instability is depressed from the analytic estimates.