The generation of ultrahigh intense pulse has open up a new field in
optics, the field of relativistic nonlinear optics, where the nonlinearity
is dictated by the relativistic character of the electron. This young field
has already produced a series of landmark experiments. Among them are the
generation of energetic beams of particles
(electrons, protons, ions, positrons), as well as beams of X-ray and
?-ray.
More recently it was shown by PIC simulations, that the light-induced large
pressure on the critical surface could move the critical surface at
relativistic velocity hence producing simultaneously short attosecond
electron and attosecond electromagnetic pulses by relativistic
compression. This novel approach to attosecond generation offers a new and
efficient route to attosecond generation with some unique
features: efficiency, pulse isolation and the potential to accommodate
arbitrarily large amount of energy, since the plasma cannot be damaged. It
has also been shown that the process of attosecond generation is
accompanied by the generation of synchronized attosecond electron and
photon pulses. In addition there is the possibility to scatter the laser
pulse itself on the ultra short electron pulses to produce by coherent
Thomson scattering ultra bright X-ray beams.
Finally, the efficient relativistic compression of laser pulses offers the
possibility to produce pulses 1000 times shorter (few as) in the nm range
without any limit in energy. The energy density would be such that
nonlinear QED effects such as vacuum polarization or pair generation could
be observed.In summary this overview will show that ultra relativistic optics could be
a new gateway to attosecond physics, that could unify, Nuclear Physics High
Energy Physics, astrophysics, General Relativity, Cosmology and Nonlinear
QED
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