Self-focusing and self-compression of intense pulses via ionization-induced spatiotemporal reshaping
Optics
2020-11-25 v1 Plasma Physics
Abstract
Ionization is a fundamental process in intense laser-matter interactions, and is known to cause plasma defocusing and intensity clamping. Here, we investigate theoretically the propagation dynamics of an intense laser pulse in a helium gas jet in the ionization saturation regime, and we find that the pulse undergoes self-focusing and self-compression through ionization-induced reshaping, resulting in a manyfold increase in the laser intensity. This unconventional behavior is associated with the spatiotemporal frequency variation mediated by ionization and spatiotempral coupling. Our results illustrate a new regime of pulse propagation and open up an optics-less approach for raising the laser intensity.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2010.15990,
title = {Self-focusing and self-compression of intense pulses via ionization-induced spatiotemporal reshaping},
author = {Xiaohui Gao and Bonggu Shim},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.15990},
year = {2020}
}