Relativistic Tennis Using Flying Mirror

Journal Article · Tue Jun 24 00:00:00 EDT 2008 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2958205· OSTI ID:21148860

Pirozhkov, A S; Kando, M; Ma, J; Fukuda, Y; Chen, L -M; Daito, I; Ogura, K; Homma, T; Hayashi, Y; Kotaki, H; Sagisaka, A; Mori, M; Koga, J K; Kawachi, T; Daido, H; Kimura, T; Kato, Y; Tajima, T ^[1]; Esirkepov, T Zh ^[1]; Bulanov, S V ^[1]

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1. Advanced Photon Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 8-1 Umemidai, Kizugawa, Kyoto 619-0215 (Japan)

Upon reflection from a relativistic mirror, the electromagnetic pulse frequency is upshifted and the duration is shortened by the factor proportional to the relativistic gamma-factor squared due to the double Doppler effect. We present the results of the proof-of-principle experiment for frequency upshifting of the laser pulse reflected from the relativistic 'flying mirror', which is a wake wave near the breaking threshold created by a strong driver pulse propagating in underdense plasma. Experimentally, the wake wave is created by a 2 TW, 76 fs Ti:S laser pulse from the JLITE-X laser system in helium plasma with the electron density of {approx_equal}4-6x10{sup 19} cm{sup -3}. The reflected signal is observed with a grazing-incidence spectrograph in 24 shots. The wavelength of the reflected radiation ranges from 7 to 14 nm, the corresponding frequency upshifting factors are {approx}55-115, and the gamma-factors are y = 4-6. The reflected signal contains at least 3x10{sup 7} photons/sr. This effect can be used to generate coherent high-frequency ultrashort pulses that inherit temporal shape and polarization from the original (low-frequency) ones. Apart from this, the reflected radiation contains important information about the wake wave itself, e.g. location, size, phase velocity, etc.

• OSTI ID: 21148860
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1024, Issue 1; Conference: 1. international symposium on laser-driven relativistic plasmas applied for science, industry and medicine, Kyoto (Japan), 17-20 Sep 2007; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2958205; (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ABLATION
BEAM-PLASMA SYSTEMS
DOPPLER EFFECT
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSES
ELECTRON DENSITY
HELIUM
LASER RADIATION
LASERS
MIRRORS
PHASE VELOCITY
PHOTONS
PLASMA
POLARIZATION
REFLECTION
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
WAVELENGTHS