Neutron emission from a deuterated solid target irradiated by an ultraintense laser pulse

Neutron production from a deuterated solid target irradiated by an ultraintense laser pulse is studied by means of kinetic numerical simulations. A two-dimensional particle-in-cell code is used to compute the velocity distribution of the deuterium ions accelerated during the interaction of the laser pulse with a hot deuterium plasma. A postprocessor has been designed to evaluate the slowing down of these ions in the solid unionized target, and the amount of neutrons produced by nuclear reactions between the accelerated and target ions. The energy and angle distributions of these neutrons are computed and compared to recent experimental results.

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