Extreme case of Faraday effect: magnetic splitting of ultrashort laser pulses in plasmas

Abstract

The Faraday effect, caused by a magnetic-field-induced change in the optical properties, takes place in a vast variety of systems from a single atomic layer of graphenes to huge galaxies. Currently, it plays a pivot role in many applications such as the manipulation of light and the probing of magnetic fields and material's properties. Basically, this effect causes a polarization rotation of light during its propagation along the magnetic field in a medium. Here, we report an extreme case of the Faraday effect where a linearly polarized ultrashort laser pulse splits in time into two circularly polarized pulses of opposite handedness during its propagation in a highly magnetized plasma. This offers a new degree of freedom for manipulating ultrashort and ultrahigh power laser pulses. Together with technologies of ultra-strong magnetic fields, it may pave the way for novel optical devices, such as magnetized plasma polarizers. In addition, it may offer a powerful means to measure strong magnetic fields in laser-produced plasmas.

arXiv comment18 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Astrophysical magnetic fields and nonlinear dynamo theory
• Ion acceleration by superintense laser-plasma interaction
• Wide-bandwidth, tunable, multiple-pulse-width optical delays using slow light in cesium vapor
• Tunable Circularly Polarized Terahertz Radiation from Magnetized Gas Plasma
• Plasma optical modulators for intense lasers
• Dense blocks of energetic ions driven by multi-petawatt lasers
• Reactor for boron fusion with picosecond ultrahigh power laser pulses and ultrahigh magnetic field trapping

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Ionization injection in a laser wakefield accelerator subject to a transverse magnetic field
• Simultaneous polarization transformation and amplification of multi-petawatt laser pulses in magnetized plasmas
• Growth, saturation and collapse of laser-driven plasma density gratings
• Ultrafast Wave-Particle Energy Transfer in the Collapse of Standing Whistler Waves
• Cascaded acceleration of proton beams in ultrashort laser-irradiated microtubes
• Plasma Concept for Generating Circularly Polarized Electromagnetic Waves with Relativistic Amplitude
• Relativistic and Electromagnetic Molecular Dynamics Simulations for a Carbon-Gold Nanotube Accelerator
• Generation of megatesla magnetic fields by intense-laser-driven microtube implosions
• Localized absorption of laser energy in X-mode configuration of magnetized plasma
• Excitation of Electrostatic Standing Wave in the Superposition of Two Counter Propagating Relativistic Whistler Waves
• The Extreme Faraday Effect in Fast Radio Bursts
• Faraday-Fresnel rotation and splitting of orbital angular momentum carrying waves in a rotating plasma
• Phase-Matched Harmonic Generation in Strongly Magnetized Plasma