Laser wake field acceleration: the highly non-linear broken-wave regime

We use three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to study laser wake field acceleration (LWFA) at highly relativistic laser intensities. We observe ultra-short electron bunches emerging from laser wake fields driven above the wave-breaking threshold by few-cycle laser pulses shorter than the plasma wavelength. We find a new regime in which the laser wake takes the shape of a solitary plasma cavity. It traps background electrons continuously and accelerates them. We show that 12-J, 33-fs laser pulses may produce bunches of 3×10¹⁰ electrons with energy sharply peaked around 300 MeV. These electrons emerge as low-emittance beams from plasma layers just 700-μm thick. We also address a regime intermediate between direct laser acceleration and LWFA, when the laser-pulse duration is comparable with the plasma period. Received: 12 December 2001 / Published online: 14 March 2002     

Experimental Investigation of Chaos Synchronization in DFB Diode Lasers with Unsymmetrical Scheme

We experimentally generate high dimension chaotic waveforms with smooth spectrum using a distributed feedback （DFB） semiconductor laser with unidirectional fibre ring long-cavity feedback, and implement the stable chaos synchronization when the chaotic light is injected into a solitary DFB laser diode. The synchronization quality is investigated by time-domain and frequency-domain analysis separately, The frequency-domain analysis indicates that the synchronization has higher quality in the high frequency band. The influences of the injection strength and the frequency detuning on the synchronization are measured. Our experimental results show that the robust synchronization can be maintained with the optical frequency detuning from -11GHz to 40 GHz.     

Solitary wave propagation in quantum electron-positron plasmas

Existence of large amplitude stationary solitary wave structures in an unmagnetized electron-positron (e-p) plasma is studied using a quantum hydrodynamic (QHD) model that includes the quantum force (tunnelling) associated with the Bohm potential and the Fermi-dirac pressure law. It is found that in a quasi-neutral pair (e-p) plasma, where the dispersion is only due to the the quantum tunnelling effects, the large amplitude stationary solitary structure exists only when the normalized Mach speed,M <√2. Such solitary structures do not exist in absence of the Bohm potential term in an unmagnetized quasineutral pair (e-p) plasma. The system is shown to support only rarefactive stationary solitary waves. For such waves the amplitude, being independent of the quantum parameter H (the ratio of the electron plasmon to electron Fermi energy), decreases with the Mach number M, whereas the width increases with both M and H. The present theory is applicable to analyze the formation of localized coherent solitary structures at quantum scales in dense astrophysical objects as well as in intense laser fields.     

Enhancement of chaotic carrier bandwidth in laser diode transmitter utilizing external light injection

Semiconductor laser with optical feedback emitting chaotic optical signal can be treated as chaotic carrier transmitter. Based on laser rate equations, we numerically study the effect of external injection light on the bandwidth of chaotic carrier transmitter. Our numerical simulation shows that the bandwidth of the chaotic carrier transmitter can be enhanced significantly by external photons injection. Compared with the 2 GHz relaxation oscillation frequency of a solitary laser diode without optical injection, the bandwidth of a chaotic carrier transmitter is expanded to 14.5 GHz with injection parameter at k_inj = 0.39. Simulation results also demonstrate that the enhanced bandwidth depends obviously on the frequency detuning between the external injection laser diode and the chaotic carrier transmitter. The maximum bandwidth of the chaotic transmitter can be obtained when the frequency of the injected light is higher than the central frequency of the carrier transmitter between 2 GHz and 4 GHz.     

Solitary surface acoustic waves and bulk solitons in nanosecond and picosecond laser ultrasonics

Recent achievements of nonlinear acoustics concerning the realization of solitons and solitary waves in crystals and their surfaces attained by nanosecond and picosecond laser ultrasonics are discussed and compared. The corresponding pump-probe setups are described, which allow an all-optical contact-free excitation and detection of short strain pulses in the broad frequency range between 10 MHz and about 300 GHz. The formation of solitons in the propagating longitudinal strain pulses is investigated for nonlinear media with intrinsic lattice-based dispersion. The excitation of solitary surface acoustic waves is realized by a geometric film-based dispersion effect. Future developments and potential applications of nonlinear nanosecond and picosecond ultrasonics are discussed.     

Allowable propagation of short pulse laser beam in a plasma channel and electromagnetic solitary waves

Nonparaxial and nonlinear propagation of a short intense laser beam in a parabolic plasma channel is analyzed by means of the variational method and nonlinear dynamics. The beam propagation properties are classified by five kinds of behaviors. In particularly, the electromagnetic solitary wave for finite pulse laser is found beside the other four propagation cases including beam periodically oscillating with defocussing and focusing amplitude, constant spot size, beam catastrophic focusing. It is also found that the laser pulse can be allowed to propagate in the plasma channel only when a certain relation for laser parameters and plasma channel parameters is satisfied. For the solitary wave, it may provide an effective way to obtain ultra-short laser pulse.     

激光偏振状态对磁化等离子体中电磁孤波的影响

强激光与等离子体之间相互作用,能够产生各种参量不稳定性过程和非线性效应。利用Karpman方法推导出横场包络所满足的非线性控制性方程,在一维情况下,获得孤波解。对孤波解进行分析,发现波包孤子的半宽反比于振幅;分析磁化等离子体中各参量对孤波半宽的影响。结果表明,在右旋圆偏振激光情况下,随着电子数密度的增大,孤波的半宽逐渐减小,而当磁场强度增大时,孤波的半宽逐渐增大;在左旋圆偏振激光情况下,随着电子数密度的增大,孤波的半宽逐渐增大,而当磁场强度增大时,孤波的半宽逐渐减小。     

Quasi-static electromagnetic pulse generated by ultra-intense laser pulses

A solitary structure of quasi-static electromagnetic pulse is formed in moderate density plasmas by a propagation of ultra-intense and ultra-short laser pulse, which is formed after the laser pulse is depleted and slowly propagates in the laser propagation direction. The structure is sustained by huge magnetic pressure and compensating electric field which are in an electromagnetic equilibrium together with the plasma motion. The solitary structure is formed when the resonance condition is satisfied and laser intensity is high enough to induce huge magnetic field pressure.     

Interactions between neighboring combined solitary waves

In this paper, the interactions of three types of adjacent combined solitary waves, which are conveniently called Types I, II, and III combined solitary wave, respectively, are numerically investigated. The results show that their interactions exhibit quite different properties. For Type I combined solitary waves, the interaction is quite weaker than that of dark solitons for the standard nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation. Interestingly, the interaction can be well suppressed when they are reduced to the pure dark ones. But for Type II combined solitary waves, the interaction is much stronger than those of Types I and III combined solitary waves and is very difficult to be suppressed. Surprisingly, two adjacent Type III combined solitary waves, both brightlike and darklike ones, hardly interplay each other. These results imply that Type I pure dark solitary waves and Type III combined solitary waves may be regarded as appropriate candidates for information carriers. In addition, the propagation of pulse trains composed of combined solitary waves is investigated.     

Nonlinear propagation of an intense Laguerre–Gaussian laser pulse in a plasma channel

The nonlinear propagation of an intense Laguerre–Gaussian(LG) laser pulse in a parabolic preformed plasma channel is analyzed by means of the variational method. The evolution equation of the spot size is derived including the effects of relativistic self-focusing, preformed channel focusing, and ponderomotive self-channeling. The parametric conditions of the LG laser pulse and plasma channel for propagating with constant spot size, periodically focusing and defocusing oscillation,catastrophic focusing, and solitary waves are obtained. Compared with the laser pulse with fundamental Gaussian(FG)mode, it is found that the effect of vacuum diffraction is reduced by half and the effects of relativistic and wakefield focusing are decreased by a quarter due to the hollow transverse intensity profile of the LG laser pulse, while the effect of channel focusing is the same order of magnitude with that of the FG laser pulse. Thus, the matched condition for the intense LG laser pulse with constant spot size is released obviously, while the parameters of the laser and plasma for the existence of solitary waves nearly coincide with those of the FG laser pulse.     

Effect of deviations from isothermality of ions on the propagation of localized dust-acoustic waves

The effect of deviations from isothermality of ions on arbitrary amplitude dust-acoustic solitary structures is studied in an unmagnetized dusty plasma which consists of a negative charged dust fluid, free electrons and hot ions obeying a trapped distribution. For the finite deviation from isothermality of ions, the basic properties of large amplitude solitary waves are studied by employing pseudo-potential approach. It is shown that the effect of such ion behavior changes the maximum values of the Mach number and the amplitude for which solitary wave can exist. For the case that the deviation from isothermality due to nonlinear resonant particle effects is small, calculations by reductive perturbation method leads to a generalized Korteweg-de Vries equation with mixed nonlinearity. The latter admits a stationary dust-acoustic solitary solution with similar width and qualitatively different amplitude in comparison to the case that deviations from isothermality are finite. Furthermore, effects of the equilibrium free electron density and such trapped ions on the amplitude of solitary structures imply a non-uniform transition from the Boltzmann ion distribution to the trapped ion one.     

Dust-acoustic solitary waves in an adiabatic hot dusty plasma

An adiabatic hot dusty plasma (containing non-inertial adiabatic electron and ion fluids, and negatively charged inertial adiabatic dust fluid) is considered. The basic properties of arbitrary amplitude dust-acoustic (DA) solitary waves, which exist in such an adiabatic hot dusty plasma, are explicitly examined by the pseudo-potential approach. To compare the basic properties (critical Mach number, amplitude and width) of the DA solitary waves observed in a dusty plasma containing adiabatic electron, ion and dust fluids with those observed in a dusty plasma containing isothermal electron and ion fluids and adiabatic dust fluid, it has been found that the adiabatic effect of inertia-less electron and ion fluids has significantly modified the basic properties of the DA solitary waves, and that on the basic properties of the DA solitary waves, the adiabatic effect of electron and ion fluids is much more significant than that of the dust fluid.     

Coexistence of positive and negative solitary potential structures in dusty plasma

A dusty plasma system consisting of electrons, ions, and negative as well as positive dust particles has been considered. The basic properties of arbitrary amplitude solitary potential structures that may exist in such a multi-component dusty plasma have been theoretically investigated by the pseudo-potential approach. It has been found that the presence of additional positive dust component does not only significantly modify the basic properties of solitary potential structures, but also causes the coexistence of positive and negative solitary potential structures, which is a completely new feature shown in a dusty plasma with dust of opposite polarity.     

Analysis of the fast recovery dynamics of a semiconductor laser with feedback in the low-frequency fluctuation regime

We experimentally investigate the temporal evolution of the power of an external cavity semiconductor laser in the low-frequency fluctuation regime with subnanosecond resolution. We show, for the first time to our knowledge, that generally the laser power drops to a value significantly different from the solitary laser power. We demonstrate the analogy between the recovery of the laser intensity and the turn-on transient of a semiconductor laser.     

Passively mode-locked Yb:KLu(WO4)2 thin-disk oscillator operated in the positive and negative dispersion regime

We demonstrate a passively mode-locked femtosecond Yb:KLu(WO(4))(2) thin-disk laser oscillator. Chirped-pulse operation in the positive dispersion regime as well as solitary operation have been realized, and the laser performance of both configurations are compared. In the solitary mode-locking regime the output power exceeds 25 W in a diffraction-limited beam, and pulse durations as short as 440 fs at a 34.7 MHz repetition rate have been generated. For the first time we present a chirped-pulse operation of a thin-disk oscillator that yields a maximum average output power of 9.5 W with a Fourier limit of 450 fs.     

On the existence of ion-acoustic solitary waves in a gravitating dusty plasma having charge fluctuation

Theoretical investigation on the propagation of ion-acoustic waves in an unmagnetized self-gravitating plasma has been made for the existence of solitary waves using the reductive perturbation method. It is observed that nonlinear excitations follow a coupled third-order partial differential equation which is slightly different from the usual case of coupled Korteweg-de Vries (K-dV) system. It appears that the system so deduced is a two-component generalization of the previous one derived by Paul et al. (1999) in which it was shown that ion-acoustic solitary waves can not exist in such system.     

Effect of excavated trapped electron distributions on ion-acoustic solitary structures in an electron-positron-ion plasma

Fully nonlinear propagation of ion-acoustic solitary waves in an unmagnetized electron-positron-ion plasma is investigated. A more realistic situation is considered in which electrons interact with the wave potential during its evolution and, follow the vortex-like excavated trapped distribution. The basic properties of large amplitude solitary waves are studied by deriving an energy integral equation involving Sagdeev potential. It is shown that effects of such electron behavior and positron concentration change the maximum values of the Mach number and amplitude for which solitary waves can exist. The small amplitude limit is also investigated by expanding the Sagdeev potential to include third-order nonlinearity of electric potential. In this case, exact analytical solution is obtained which is related to the contribution of the resonant electron to the electron density. It is shown from both highly and weakly nonlinear analysis that the plasma system under consideration supports only compressive solitary waves.     

相干长度可连续调谐的半导体激光器

实验利用光反馈的方法获得了相干长度连续可调的半导体激光光源.通过调节反馈强度及抽运电流,有效控制了光反馈半导体激光器的相干长度.其相干长度可由无反馈时的几米连续调至100 μm.同时,利用光反馈半导体激光器速率方程,数值模拟了反馈强度及抽运电流对半导体激光器相干长度的影响.实验及数值模拟均表明：通过调节反馈强度的大小可以有效控制半导体激光器的相干长度,光反馈半导体激光器的相干长度随反馈强度的增大而减小,而偏置电流对相干长度无明显影响.模拟结果与实验结果符合. 关键词： 光反馈半导体激光器 相干长度 反馈 混沌     

Solitary waves in the granular chain

Solitary waves are lumps of energy. We consider the study of dynamical solitary waves, meaning cases where the energy lumps are moving, as opposed to topological solitary waves where the lumps may be static. Solitary waves have been studied in some form or the other for nearly 450 years. Subsequently, there have been many authoritative works on solitary waves. Nevertheless, some of the most recent studies reveal that these peculiar objects are far more complex than what we might have given them credit for. In this review, we introduce the physics of solitary waves in alignments of elastic beads, such as glass beads or stainless steel beads. We show that any impulse propagates as a new kind of highly interactive solitary wave through such an alignment and that the existence of these waves seems to present a need to re-examine the very definition of the concept of equilibrium. We further discuss the possibility of exploiting nonlinear properties of granular alignments to develop exciting technological applications.     

Cylindrical and spherical dust ion-acoustic solitary waves in quantum plasmas

Dust ion-acoustic solitary waves in unmagnetized quantum plasmas are studied in spherical and cylindrical geometries. Using quantum hydrodynamic model, the electrostatic waves are investigated in the weakly nonlinear limit. A deformed Korteweg-de Vries (dKdV) equation is derived by using the reductive perturbation method and its numerical solutions are also presented. The quantum diffraction and quantum statistical effects incorporated in the system modifies the characteristics of dust ion-acoustic waves in cylindrical and spherical geometries. The role of stationary dust particles in quantum plasmas are also discussed. It is shown that the cylindrical and spherical dust ion-acoustic solitary waves behave quite differently from one-dimensional planar solitary waves in quantum plasmas.