All-optical compact setup for generation of collimated multi-MeV proton beams with a "snail" target

Abstract: The work considers an optical scheme for collimation of high-energy proton beams using $\sim 10^5$~T scale magnetic fields induced in a miniature "snail" target by petawatt or multi-petawatt laser irradiation in ps or fs regime. Such magnetic fields are known to be frozen into hot plasma and exist on at least a hundred of picoseconds time-scale, allowing their use for control of charged particle beams. The high values of the magnetic field along with the compact size perfectly match conditions for an all-in-one optical setup, where first, the laser beam accelerates protons, by, e.g. Target Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA) mechanism, and second, the closely positioned snail target is driven to guide the proton beam. An important issue is that the laser drivers for both proton acceleration schemes and the magnetic field generation in the considered targets may have the same properties, and even be parts of one splitted beam. Numerical simulations show that the considered setup can be used for efficient collimation of $\simeq 100$~MeV protons. The collimation effect weakly depends on the fine magnetic field structure and can be observed both for a simple magneto-dipole field profile and for a more complex coaxial-like profiles accounting for the intricate structure of electric currents in the interaction region. The obtained results are interesting for the development of intense laser-driven sources of charged particle beams with low divergence and high energy of accelerated particles.