Within the framework of plane-wave angular spectrum analysis of the electromagnetic field structure,a solution valid for tightly focused radially polarized few-cycle laser pulses propagating in vacuum is presented.The resulting field distribution is significantly different from that based on the paraxial approximation for pulses with either small or large beam diameters.We compare the electron accelerations obtained with the two solutions and find that the energy gain obtained with our new solution is usually much larger than that with the paraxial approximation solution.
It is found that there is an upper-limit critical power for self-guided propagation of intense lasers in plasma in addition to the well-known lower-limit critical power set by the relativistic effect.Above this upper-limit critical power,the laser pulse experiences defocusing due to expulsion of local plasma electrons by the transverse ponderomotive force.Associated with the upper-limit power,a lower-limit critical plasma density is also found for a given laser spot size,below which self-focusing does not occur for any laser power.Both the upper-limit power and the lower-limit density are derived theoretically and verified by two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations.The present study provides new guidance for experimental designs,where self-guided propagation of lasers is essential.
Terahertz radiation,defined in the frequency range of 0.1-10 THz,has been exploited to demonstrate unique properties that do not apply to the adjacent domains of the electromagnetic waves,such as infrared and microwave.Recent advances in terahertz science and technology hold promise for a wide variety of essential applications,particularly in spectroscopy,sensing,imaging,non-destructive detections,and communications.This focus issue is comprised of invited and contributed
A survey on the mechanisms of powerful terahertz (THz) radiation from laser plasmas is presented.Firstly,an analytical model is described,showing that a transverse net current formed in a plasma can be converted into THz radiations at the plasma oscillation frequency.This theory is applied to explain THz generation in a gas driven by two-color laser pulses.It is also applied to THz generation in a tenuous plasma driven by a chirped laser pulse,a few-cycle laser pulse,a DC/AC bias electric field.These are well verified by particle-in-cell simulations,demonstrating that THz radiations produced in these approaches are nearly single-cycles and linear polarized.In the chirped laser scheme and the few-cycle laser scheme,THz radiations with the peak field strength of tens of MV/cm and the peak power of gigawatt can be achieved with the incident laser intensity less than 10 17 W/cm 2.
A review is presented on our recent Vlasov-Fokker-Planck(VFP)simulation code development and applications for high-power laser-plasma interactions.Numerical schemes are described for solving the kinetic VFP equation with both electronelectron and electron-ion collisions in one-spatial and two-velocity(1D2V)coordinates.They are based on the positive and flux conservation method and the finite volume method,and these twomethods can insure the particle number conservation.Our simulation code can deal with problems in high-power laser/beam-plasma interactions,where highly non-Maxwellian electron distribution functions usually develop and the widely-used perturbation theories with the weak anisotropy assumption of the electron distribution function are no longer in point.We present some new results on three typical problems:firstly the plasma current generation in strong direct current electric fields beyond Spitzer-H¨arm’s transport theory,secondly the inverse bremsstrahlung absorption at high laser intensity beyond Langdon’s theory,and thirdly the heat transport with steep temperature and/or density gradients in laser-produced plasma.Finally,numerical parameters,performance,the particle number conservation,and the energy conservation in these simulations are provided.
