Pulse Shaping by Relativistic Transparency in Overdense Plasma and Its Applications in Particle Acceleration

Abstract

A versatile shaping of a laser pulse using relativistic transparency in an overdense plasma has been studied. First we present the propagation of a linearly polarized pulse through an overdense plasma and a semi-phenomenological 1-dimensional formula to calculate the channel-digging speed. Second the pulse shaping both in longitudinal and transverse directions using a non-uniform plasma slab is presented by 2-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The second subject is a unique point of this work in the context of relativistic transparency and pulse shaping. Furthermore the 2-dimensional results are shown to be in a good agreement with the 1-dimensional formula of the channel-digging. The shaping scheme using non-uniform plasmas gives more freedom to the control of the shape of ultraintense pulses for various purposes.