| Sumario: | Investigates the generation of plasma by irradiating with a convergent relativistic electron beam spherical targets whose outer layer is constituted by heavy materials (i.e. gold). The energy deposition is described by the well-known law commonly employed in the interaction of high energy electrons with cold matter. Average values for the density and thermal and expansion velocities of the plasma (corona) are given as functions of the power of the beam and of the particle radius. It results that after a first phase, which consists in the heating and the expansion of a layer whose initial thickness is the electron range in the unperturbed solid, the corona tends to a self-regulated regime, adjusting its average density to a value such that the electron range becomes of the order of the radius of the target.
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