X-Ray Radiation from Nonlinear Thomson Scattering of an Intense Femtosecond Laser on Relativistic Electrons in a Helium Plasma

Authors

• K. Ta Phuoc, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France
• A. Rousse, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France
• M. Pittman, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France
• J.P. Rousseau, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France
• Victor Malka, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, FranceFollow
• S. Fritzler, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France
• Donald P. Umstadter, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• D. Hulin, Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, France

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2-2-2003

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Physical Review Letters, 91, 195001-1 (2003). http://prl.aps.org. Copyright © 2003 American Physical Society. Permission to use.

Abstract

We have generated x-ray radiation from the nonlinear Thomson scattering of a 30 fs/1.5 J laser beam on plasma electrons. A collimated x-ray radiation with a broad continuous spectrum peaked at 0.15 keV with a significant tail up to 2 keV has been observed. These characteristics are found to depend strongly on the laser strength parameter a₀. This radiative process is dominant for a₀ greater than unity at which point the relativistic scattering of the laser light originates from MeV energy electrons inside the plasma.