Laser field absorption in self-generated electron-positron pair plasma

Recently, much attention has been attracted to the problem of limitations on the attainable intensity of high power lasers A.?M. Fedotov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 080402 (2010)]. The laser energy can be absorbed by electron-positron pair plasma produced from a seed by a strong laser field via the development of the electromagnetic cascades. The numerical model for a self-consistent study of electron-positron pair plasma dynamics is developed. Strong absorption of the laser energy in self-generated overdense electron-positron pair plasma is demonstrated. It is shown that the absorption becomes important for a not extremely high laser intensity I ～ 10(24) W/cm(2) achievable in the near future.