A two-dimensional hybrid code is developed to model the transport of a high-current electron beam in a dense plasma target. The beam electrons are treated as particles and described by particle-in-cell simulation including collisions with the target plasma particles. The background target plasma is assumed to be a stationary fluid with temperature variations. The return current and the self-generated electric and magnetic fields are obtained by combining Amp^re＇s law without the displacement current, the resistive Ohm＇s law and Faraday＇s law. The equations are solved in two-dimensional cylindrical geometry with rotational symmetry on a regular grid, with centered spatial differencing and first-order implicit time differencing. The algorithms implemented in the code are described, and a numerical experiment is performed for an electron beam with Maxwellian distribution ejected into a uniform deuterium-tritium plasma target.
The effect of inner-surface roughness of conical targets on the generation of fast electrons in the laser-cone interaction is investigated using particle-in-cell simulation. It is found that the surface roughness can reduce the fast-electron number （in the energy range E 〉 1 MeV） and energy, as compared to that from a cone with smooth inner wall. A scaling law for the laser reflectivity based on the vacuum-heating model is derived. Both theory and simulation indicate that laser reflection increases with the height-to-width ratio of the periodic inner surface structure and approaches that of a smooth cone as this ratio becomes zero.
