TRAINS OF BEATING LIGHT WAVES

Ion acceleration by beating electrostatic waves: domain of allowed acceleration.

The conditions under which a magnetized ion can be accelerated through a nonlinear interaction with a pair of beating electrostatic waves are explored. It has been shown [Benisti et al., Phys. Plasma 5, 3224 (1998)] that the electric field of the beating waves can, under some conditions, accelerate ions from arbitrarily low initial velocity in stark contrast with the well-known nonlinear thresh...

Nonlinear plasma waves resonantly driven by optimized laser pulse trains.

Stochastic threshold for ion heating with beating electrostatic waves.

The stochastic threshold for the heating of ions in a magnetized plasma with two electrostatic waves is experimentally characterized. Two obliquely propagating electrostatic modes are launched in a magnetized plasma with frequencies that differ by the ion cyclotron frequency. The values of the wave amplitudes where a rapid increase in the local ion temperature occurs is then parametrically inve...

Light Adaptation of Discrete Waves

Light adaptation affects discrete waves in two ways. It reduces their average size and decreases the probability that a photon incident at the cornea causes a discrete wave. There is no effect of light adaptation on the latency of discrete waves, or on their time-course.

Direct measurement of light waves.

The electromagnetic field of visible light performs approximately 10(15) oscillations per second. Although many instruments are sensitive to the amplitude and frequency (or wavelength) of these oscillations, they cannot access the light field itself. We directly observed how the field built up and disappeared in a short, few-cycle pulse of visible laser light by probing the variation of the fie...