Various novel concepts of focusing and diagnosis of high energy charged particle beams, based on the interaction between the relativistic particle beam and the-plasma, are reviewed. This includes overdense and underdense thin plasma lenses, an (underdense) adiabatic plasma lens, and two beam size monitor concepts. In addition, we introduce another mechanism for measuring flat beams based on the...

The excitation of a slow extraordinary wave in a overdense plasma from an ordinary wave impinging on the critical layer in the plane spanned by the density gradient and magnetic field is solved analytically by formulating the problem in terms of a parabolic cylinder equation. A formula for the angular dependence of the transmission coefficient is derived.

The theory of electromagnetically induced transparency ~EIT! in a plasma @S. E. Harris, Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 5357 ~1996!# is examined in the context of an infinite system. A new dispersion relation is derived which accounts for relativistic effects in an overdense plasma. Several branches of the dispersion relation are plotted and discussed. Particle simulations are used to confirm the findings...

The parametric excitation of pairs of electron surface waves (ESW) in the interaction of an ultrashort, intense laser pulse with an overdense plasma is discussed using an analytical model. The plasma has a simple step-like density profile. The ESWs can be excited either by the electric or by the magnetic part of the Lorentz force exerted by the laser and, correspondingly, have frequencies aroun...

A coaxial plasma-waveguide-system exhibits strong absorption near its dipole resonance. Due to the plasmaguide-mode overdense plasmas can be generated in this device. Ionization dynamics and properties of this discharge are investigated by means of different diagnostic methods; the results are compared with analytical calculations of the dispersion relation in the plasma-waveguide-system. In th...

We present a new mechanism for high-order harmonic generation by reflection of a laser beam from an overdense plasma, efficient even at moderate laser intensities (down to Igamma2 approximately 4x10(15) W cm-2 microm2). In this mechanism, a transient phase matching between the electromagnetic field and plasma oscillations within a density gradient leads to the emission of harmonics up to the pl...

A long, relativistic particle beam propagating in an overdense plasma is subject to the self-modulation instability. This instability is analyzed and the growth rate is calculated, including the phase relation. The phase velocity of the wake is shown to be significantly less than the beam velocity. These results indicate that the energy gain of a plasma accelerator driven by a self-modulated be...