Mechanism of terahertz (THz) pulse generation in gases irradiated by ultrashort laser pulses is investigated theoretically. Quasi-static transverse currents produced by laser field ionization of gases and the longitudinal modulation in formed plasmas are responsible for the THz emission at the electron plasma frequency, as demonstrated by particle-in-cell simulations including field ionization. The THz field amplitude scaling with the laser amplitude within a large range is also discussed.
The collisional current-filamentation instability (CFI) is studied for a nonrelativistic electron beam penetrating an infinite uniform plasma. It is analytically shown that the CFI is driven by the drift-anisotropy rather than the classical anisotropy of the beam and the background plasma. Therefore, collisional effects can either attenuate or enhance the CFI depending on the drift-anisotropy of the beam-plasma system. Numerical results are given for some typical parameters, which show that collisional effects cannot stabilize but enhance the CFI in a dense plasma. Thus, the CFI may play a dominant role in the fast electron transport and deposition relevant to the fast ignition scenario (FIS).
With one-and two-dimensional particle-in-cell(PIC)codes,we simulate the generation of high power terahertz(THz)emission from the interaction of ultrashort intense lasers with tenuous plasma and gas targets.By driving high-amplitude electron plasma waves either with a laser wakefield or the beatwave of two laser pulses,powerful THz electromagnetic pulses can be produced by linear mode conversion in inhomogeneous plasma or by the transient current induced at the surfaces of a thin plasma layer of few plasma wavelengths.Even with incident lasers at moderate intensity such as 1017W/cm2,the produced emission can be at the level of tens of MW in power and capable of affording field strengths of a few MV/cm,suitable for the studies of THz nonlinear physics.With field ionization included in the PIC codes,THz emission from laser interaction with tenuous gas targets is simulated.It is found that the transient transverse current formed during the ionization processes is responsible for the THz emission.With this mechanism,onemay also obtain THz fields ofMV/cm at lower laser intensity as compared with the schemes of plasma-wave excitation.
