English

Enhanced relativistic harmonics by electron nanobunching

Plasma Physics 2011-08-10 v1

Abstract

It is shown that when an few-cycle, relativistically intense, p-polarized laser pulse is obliquely incident on overdense plasma, the surface electrons may form ultra-thin, highly compressed layers, with a width of a few nanometers. These electron "nanobunches" emit synchrotron radiation coherently. We calculate the one-dimensional synchrotron spectrum analytically and obtain a slowly decaying power-law with an exponent of 4/3 or 6/5. This is much flatter than the 8/3 power of the BGP (Baeva-Gordienko-Pukhov) spectrum, produced by a relativistically oscillating bulk skin layer. The synchrotron spectrum cut-off frequency is defined either by the electron relativistic γ\gamma-factor, or by the thickness of the emitting layer. In the numerically demonstrated, locally optimal case, the radiation is emitted in the form of a single attosecond pulse, which contains almost the entire energy of the full optical cycle.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1002.3576,
  title  = {Enhanced relativistic harmonics by electron nanobunching},
  author = {D. an der Brügge and A. Pukhov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1002.3576},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

to appear in Physics of Plasmas

R2 v1 2026-06-21T14:48:36.740Z