Correlated Electron Stopping in Fast Ignition Plasmas*

The effect of correlated electron stopping on Fast Ignition is an open question. In this process, the wake produced by an electron modifies the dynamics and stopping power of the electrons that travel behind it. Others have studied this process in detail in the context of non-relativistic ion beam stopping. Aside from theoretical studies, the process has been largely ignored for relativistic electron stopping. By comparing non-relativistic stopping results with the scalable molecular dynamics code ddcMD, we demonstrate that Particle-in-Cell (PIC) codes are useful tools for studying the process. We present some correlated electron stopping results from the UCLA PIC code QuickPIC.