Excitation of surface plasma waves and fast electron generation in relativistic laser–plasma interaction

Beat-wave excitation of plasma waves based on relativistic bistability.

A nonlinear beat-wave regime of plasma wave excitation is considered. Two beat-wave drivers are considered: intensity-modulated laser pulse and density-modulated (microbunched) electron beam. It is shown that a long beat-wave pulse can excite strong plasma waves in its wake even when the beat-wave frequency is detuned from the electron plasma frequency. The wake is caused by the dynamic bistabi...

Strongly enhanced laser absorption and electron acceleration via resonant excitation of surface plasma waves

Generation of Electron Plasma Waves in the Upstream Solar Wind

Electron plasma waves with amplitudes as high as 10 mV/m have been measured in the electron foreshock region of the earth's bow shock. It is shown that a population of stable suprathermal electrons of the type observed can produce the measured level of enhanced fluctuations without becoming unstable. The steady state wave level is given by the balancing between emission and absorption. The appa...

High harmonic generation in relativistic laser–plasma interaction

High harmonics generated due to the scattering of relativistic electrons from high intensity laser light is studied. The experiments are carried out with an Nd:Glass laser system with a peak intensity of 2310 W cm in underdense plasma. It is shown that, at high intensities, when the normalized electric field approaches unity, in addition to the conventional atomic harmonics from bound electrons...

Propagation and Interaction of Electrostatic and Electromagnetic Waves in Two Stream Free Electron Laser in the Presence of Self-Fields

A relativistic theory for two-stream free electron laser (FEL) with a one-dimensional helical wiggler and ion-channel guiding in the presence of self-fields are presented. A dispersion relation (DR) which includes coupling between the electromagnetic and the electrostatic waves is derived from a fluid model, with all of the relativistic terms related to the transverse wiggler motion. This DR is...