• laser-plasma
• particle acceleration
• plasma physics

We have developed a numerical Vlasov code to study high intensity laser-plasma interaction.
Our analysis began by focusing on the study of laser wakefield acceleration, a mechanism to generate high energy electrons.we concentrated our attention on the wavebreak in a thermal plasma, in order to inves-
tigate the role of the velocity distribution in the dynamics of the accelerated particles. The detailed phase space representation provided by our code, have showed novel features directly related to the relativistic particle kinematics.
Subsequently we focused on the collisionless dynamics of nonlinear electrostatic waves, such as shocks and solitons, and the related ion acceleration, in condition of interest for laboratory experiments.
The energy spectrum of the ions accelerated by reflection at the shock front appears to be strongly dependent on the initial ion distribution. In a cold plasma the reflection is related to a turbulence in the ion density, whose origin is explained with a simple analytic model. By increasing the initial ion temperature, our simulations suggest the existence of an optimal temperature to obtain monoenergetic ion beams.