Plasma effects on harmonic spectra generated from moderately relativistic laser-plasma interactions.

When intense p-polarized laser light is incident on a plasma with an electron density many times the critical density, the flux of fast electrons created by Brunel absorption excites plasma oscillations. These oscillations may in turn affect the spectrum of high harmonics by modulating the spectrum at the plasma frequency, ω(p), and by coupling to the radiation field through the steep density gradient at the plasma-vacuum interface, so generating plasma line emission (PLE) at ω(p) and harmonics of ω(p). Both aspects depend sensitively on a range of plasma and laser pulse parameters, including the initial electron density, the density profile at the plasma-vacuum interface, and the intensity, pulse shape, and pulse length of the incident laser light. These various dependences have been characterised for moderately relativistic laser-plasma interactions by means of a series of particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations.

Anomalies in universal intensity scaling in ultrarelativistic laser-plasma interactions.

Laser light incident on targets at intensities such that the electron dynamics is ultrarelativistic gives rise to a harmonic power spectrum extending to high orders and characterized by a relatively slow decay with the harmonic number m that follows a power law dependence, m(-p). Relativistic similarity theory predicts a universal value for p=8/3 up to some cutoff m=m*. The results presented in this Letter suggest that under conditions in which plasma effects contribute to the emission spectrum, the extent of this contribution may invalidate the concept of universal decay. We report a decay with the harmonic number in the ultrarelativistic range characterized by an index 5/3 < or approximately p < or approximately 7/3, significantly weaker than that predicted by the similarity model.

Plasma modulation of harmonic emission spectra from laser-plasma interactions.

We report results from particle-in-cell simulations of the interaction of intense laser light with overdense plasma designed to examine the effects of plasma waves generated by pulses of fast electrons on high-order harmonic emission from the plasma. We show that the emission spectrum is modulated at the plasma frequency and identify combinations of parameters and circumstances favorable for modulation. In particular, the observed modulation is shown to depend not only on the chosen plasma electron density and intensity of the incident light but on the density profile and pulse shape.