Aluminium Lyman-beta satellite emission in non-Maxwellian dense laser produced plasmas

High-energy decay channels of the Al Lyman-β satellite have been observed in X-ray emission from highly ionized plasma jets created by intense laser irradiation of aluminium foil targets. Atomic structure calculations show that the Lyman β satellite emission consists from six emission groups close to the He-like Al 1s²-1s4p (He_γ) and 1s²-1s5p (He_δ) resonance lines. This provides new possibilities for space resolved analysis of high density plasmas. Non-Maxwellian simulations of the plasma emission carried out with the MARIA code demonstrate that the intensity ratios of the Lyman-β satellites and the He_γ and He_δ resonance lines are very sensitive to the bulk electron temperature. In contrast to standard diagnostic methods, parameter studies show that this bulk electron diagnostics is practically unaffected by suprathermal electrons having less than 10% of the bulk electron density.