Characteristics of light reflected from a dense ionization wave with a tunable velocity.

An optically dense ionization wave (IW) produced by two femtosecond (approximately 10/30 fs) laser pulses focused cylindrically and crossing each other may become an efficient coherent x-ray converter in accordance with the Semenova-Lampe theory. The resulting velocity of a quasiplane IW in the vicinity of pulse intersection changes with the angle between the pulses from the group velocity of ionizing pulses to infinity allowing a tuning of the wavelength of x rays and their bunching. The x-ray spectra after scattering of a lower frequency and long coherent light pulse change from the monochromatic to high order harmoniclike with the duration of the ionizing pulses.

[1]  S. P. Le Blanc,et al.  Laser wakefield excitation and measurement by femtosecond longitudinal interferometry , 1996, Summaries of papers presented at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics.

[2]  Ferenc Krausz,et al.  Route to intense single attosecond pulses , 2006 .

[3]  R. Trines,et al.  Evidence of photon acceleration by laser wake fields , 2006 .

[4]  Alexander Pukhov,et al.  Short‐pulse laser harmonics from oscillating plasma surfaces driven at relativistic intensity , 1996 .

[5]  S. I. Braginskii.  Reviews of Plasma Physics , 1965 .

[6]  Edward Ott,et al.  Interaction of electromagnetic waves with a moving ionization front , 1978 .

[7]  Francesco Pegoraro,et al.  Interaction of an ultrashort, relativistically strong laser pulse with an overdense plasma , 1994 .

[8]  L A Ostrovskiĭ.  Some "moving boundaries paradoxes" in electrodynamics , 1975 .

[9]  J. T. Mendonça,et al.  Experimental Evidence of Photon Acceleration of Ultrashort Laser Pulses in relativistic Ionization Fronts , 1997 .

[10]  B. M. Bolotovskii,et al.  Reflection of light from a moving mirror and related problems , 1989 .

[11]  S. V. Bulanov,et al.  Optics in the relativistic regime , 2006 .

[12]  Mori,et al.  Generation of tunable radiation using an underdense ionization front. , 1991, Physical review. A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

[13]  H. Motz,et al.  Applications of the Radiation from Fast Electron Beams , 1951 .

[14]  Min Sup Hur,et al.  Flying mirror model for interaction of a super-intense nonadiabatic laser pulse with a thin plasma layer: Dynamics of electrons in a linearly polarized external field , 2007 .

[15]  Toshiki Tajima,et al.  Light intensification towards the Schwinger limit. , 2003, Physical review letters.

[16]  Daniel Jung,et al.  Dense laser-driven electron sheets as relativistic mirrors for coherent production of brilliant X-ray and γ-ray beams , 2008 .

[17]  Hiroyuki Daido,et al.  Attosecond pulse generation in the relativistic regime of the laser-foil interaction: The sliding mirror model , 2006 .

[18]  F. F. Kamenets,et al.  Attosecond electromagnetic pulse generation due to the interaction of a relativistic soliton with a breaking-wake plasma wave. , 2005, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[19]  K. Landecker,et al.  POSSIBILITY OF FREQUENCY MULTIPLICATION AND WAVE AMPLIFICATION BY MEANS OF SOME RELATIVISTIC EFFECTS , 1952 .

[20]  V. Granatstein,et al.  Realization of a Relativistic Mirror: Electromagnetic Backscattering from the Front of a Magnetized Relativistic Electron Beam. , 1976 .

[21]  N. Rosanov.  Transformation of electromagnetic radiation at moving inhomogeneities of a medium , 2008 .

[22]  S. V. Bulanov,et al.  Induced focusing of electromagnetic wave in a wake plasma wave , 1991 .

[23]  Yoshiaki Kato,et al.  Frequency multiplication of light back-reflected from a relativistic wake wave , 2007 .

[24]  V. I. Semenova,et al.  Reflection of electromagnetic waves from an ionization front , 1967 .

[25]  J. Meyer-ter-Vehn,et al.  3D simulations of surface harmonic generation with few-cycle laser pulses , 2007 .

[26]  G. Maravelias,et al.  Exploring intense attosecond pulses , 2008 .

[27]  G. Mourou,et al.  Relativistic generation of isolated attosecond pulses in a lambda 3 focal volume. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[28]  M Kando,et al.  Demonstration of laser-frequency upshift by electron-density modulations in a plasma wakefield. , 2007, Physical review letters.

[29]  F. F. Kamenets,et al.  Single-cycle high-intensity electromagnetic pulse generation in the interaction of a plasma wakefield with regular nonlinear structures. , 2005, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[30]  J. Hajdu,et al.  Potential for biomolecular imaging with femtosecond X-ray pulses , 2000, Nature.