Characteristics of fast electrons generated in laser-cone interaction for the HiPER project

The fast ignition scheme considered for future facilities such as HiPER relies on the efficient generation and propagation of a relativistic electron beam to ignite a pre-compressed fusion pellet. Conical targets have proven to be very attractive to produce high-energy electrons close to the core plasma. However, hybrid PIC simulations have shown that the coupling efficiency between the high-energy electrons and the dense core is highly sensitive to the initial properties of the fast electrons. Here, we present 2D-PIC simulations with the code ILLUMINATION of the laser-cone interaction. We focus on the characteristics of the fast electron beam emitted at the cone tip, such as divergence, temporal evolution, energy and spatial distributions, as a function of the interaction parameters, so as to reach the requirements for fast ignition.