Hot electron production using the Texas Petawatt Laser irradiating thick gold targets

We present data for relativistic hot electron production by the Texas Petawatt Laser irradiating solid Au targets with thickness between 1 and 4 mm. The experiment was performed at the short focus target chamber TC1 in July 2011, with intensities on the order of several ×1019 W/cm2 and laser energies around 50 J. We discuss the design of an electron-positron magnetic spectrometer to record the lepton energy spectra ejected from the Au targets and present a deconvolution algorithm to extract the lepton energy spectra. We measured hot electron spectra out to ∼50 MeV, which show a narrow peak around 10–20 MeV, plus high energy exponential tail. The hot electron spectral shapes appear significantly different from those reported for other PW lasers.