Inverse faraday effect magnetic field generation in laser induced plasma

Summary form only given. Laser plasma interactions with high intensity laser pulses can produce high magnetic fields in the 10's of MG range. One technique for generating high magnetic fields in under dense plasmas is via the Inverse Faraday Effect (IFE) which has been shown to induce axial magnetic fields in the MG range using circularly polarized light [1]. It is also proposed that similar fields could be induced using linearly polarized light where higher order angular momentum modes [2] are employed to couple the required angular momentum to the electrons. We wish to study this magnetic field generation in under dense plasma and are carrying out a simulation study of the expected fields.IFE is a phenomenon in which the circularly polarized light propagates through a non-linear medium, transmits angular momentum to the electrons and induces an axial magnetic field [3]. This picture gets more complicated with hot electron generation by the propagation of the intense laser pulse through the plasma, which in addition generates an axial current and solenoidal magnetic field. We have carried out initial Large Scale PIC (LSP) simulations to predict the scaling law for this hot electron generation and hence the expected magnetic field levels. Data will be shown for various parameters of laser plasma interaction with different densities and intensities in the threshold relativistic intensity range of 1017 to 1019 Wcm-2.