  Coulomb implosion mechanism of the negatively charged ion acceleration in
laser plasmas is proposed. When a cluster target is irradiated by an intense
laser pulse and the Coulomb explosion of positively charged ions occurs, the
negative ions are accelerated inward. The maximum energy of negative ions is
several times lower than that of positive ions. The theoretical description and
Particle-in-Cell simulation of the Coulomb implosion mechanism and the evidence
of the negative ion acceleration in the experiments on the high intensity laser
pulse interaction with the cluster targets are presented.
