Anomalies in Universal Intensity Scaling in Ultrarelativistic Laser-Plasma Interactions

Abstract

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 cut-off m = m*. The results presented in this work 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 harmonic number in the ultrarelativistic range characterised by an index 5/3 < p < 7/3, significantly weaker than that predicted by the similarity model.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Theory of high harmonic generation in relativistic laser interaction with overdense plasma

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• Plasma emission and radiation from ultra-relativistic Brunel electrons in femtosecond laser-plasma interactions