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Graduate Texts in Physics
Peter Mulser
Hot Matter from

High-Power Lasers
Fundamentals and Phenomena
Series Editors
Kurt H. Becker, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Jean-Marc Di Meglio, Matière et Systèmes Complexes, Bâtiment Condorcet,
Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France
Morten Hjorth-Jensen, Department of Physics, Blindern, University of Oslo, Oslo,
Norway
Bill Munro, NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Atsugi, Japan
William T. Rhodes, Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA
Susan Scott, Australian National University, Acton, Australia
H. Eugene Stanley, Center for Polymer Studies, Physics Department, Boston
University, Boston, MA, USA
Martin Stutzmann, Walter Schottky Institute, Technical University of Munich,
Garching, Germany
Andreas Wipf, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena,
Jena, Germany
Graduate Texts in Physics publishes core learning/teaching material for graduate- and
advanced-level undergraduate courses on topics of current and emerging fields within
physics, both pure and applied. These textbooks serve students at the MS- or
PhD-level and their instructors as comprehensive sources of principles, definitions,
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or references for scientists entering, or requiring timely knowledge of, a research field.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8431

Peter Mulser
Hot Matter from High-Power

Lasers
Fundamentals and Phenomena
123
Peter Mulser
University of Technology Darmstadt
Institute of Applied Physics
Darmstadt, Germany
ISSN 1868-4513 ISSN 1868-4521 (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-662-61179-1 ISBN 978-3-662-61181-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-61181-4
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
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Preface
Zusammenhänge müssen nicht wirklich bestehen,

aber ohne sie würde alles zerfallen
Robert Menasse in Die Hauptstadt
To Whom is the Book Addressed?
The book deals with what happens when a high-power laser of intensities from 1010
to 1022 Wcm-2 interacts with matter from the density of foams of some 1020 cm-3 up
to precompressed solids of several 1025 particles per cm3. High-power lasers have
opened a new era of atomic and nuclear physics, of solid state and high pressure
research, and of new particle acceleration schemes and intense radiation sources.
Radiation pressure in the laboratory competes with pressures in collapsing cosmic
objects and exceeds pressures in the interior of main sequence stars. Homogeneous
black body radiation temperatures of 300 eV have been generated. Matter has been
heated, to start from the hot solid of 10 eV, up to the hottest plasma of 10 MeV. For
the first time, such extremes bring astrophysics to the laboratory.
In Chap. 1, the reader is acquainted with the basic aspects of matter composed of
a positive fluid of ions and a negative fluid of free electrons held together by their
electric charges and interpenetrating each other to form the new state of a locally
neutral plasma. Its dynamics is widely governed by collective effects, a property the
newcomer in the field has to become familiar with. This is the first obstacle to be
faced. Our brains look everywhere for structure and shape and find instead to a
large extent continuous flows and transitory forms. In detail, field ionization and
collisional heating, plasma oscillations, radiation pressure effects, plasma profile
steepening, electron thermal conduction, and first steps in superintense laser
interaction with solid samples and microstructured targets are the subject of this
introductory chapter to the field of hot matter.
The question arises on how to model laser-target dynamics. One way is to study
the motion of the single positive and negative particles in representative fields:
Gyromotions and drifts in static electric and magnetic fields, quiver motion of the
electrons in the high frequency electromagnetic laser field and the resulting
v
vi Preface
ponderomotive force on the single electron. The plasma response to the latter is at
the origin of a whole variety of laser plasma phenomena. It confers the laser
generated plasma a characteristic imprint. The intense fields necessitate also a fully
relativistic treatment. The single particle description is the more successful the
closer to reality the fields are modelled. This is the content of Chap. 2.
The approach complementary to the single particle motion is the fluid dynamic
description of plasma and hot matter in its self-generated fields. Here, the two fluid
model and its merging into a single fluid, where appropriate, show their power.
Once the sources in the form of charge and current densities are known, they yield
results that are macroscopically correct. Modelling of the sources represents a major
effort. The formulation of exact and approximate fluid conservation laws, extended
also to the relativistic domain, is the subject of Chap. 3.
Under the irradiation by intense fluxes of energy matter is excited to extreme
behaviour all but in equilibrium. Once, however, after a relaxation phase, it has
turned into the new equilibrium the powerful instrument of phenomenological and
statistical thermodynamics applies. Since its use is permanently accompanied by the
question of its applicability great emphasis is concentrated on the governing
principles and subtleties of thermostatistics in this Chap. 4.
One of the most basic and far reaching concepts adaptable to structureless
charged matter is the concept of waves. Here, in the Chap. 5 the first, and still the
best field theory in the form of Maxwell’s equations is at our disposal. The reader is
introduced to the basic types of waves and their properties in the homogeneous and
inhomogeneous plasma, as they are of electromagnetic transverse type and of high
and low frequency longitudinal electrostatic and hydromagnetic kind.
The accelerated and streaming plasma is subject to hydrodynamic instabilities of
Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz type. The radiation pressure associated with
the high intensity laser beam leads to parametric wave-wave coupling, realized as
stimulated Brillouin and Raman scattering, and to back action of the deformed
plasma on the modulation and self- focusing of the laser beam itself. The unstable
behaviour of plasma under acceleration and radiation pressure makes it necessary to
dedicate a whole chapter to their description, Chap. 6.
At low laser intensities transport phenomena, to mention first absorption of the
laser beam and thermal conduction, are collision-dominated and are understood as
local phenomena. The so-called Coulomb logarithm plays a dominant role and is,
therefore, highlighted. With increasing laser power all transport phenomena become
noncollisional and collective. As particular examples, computer simulations of
interaction with matter at relativistic intensities are presented. Nonlocal transport
phenomena are the realm of numerical modelling. The strong laser coupling with
matter gives origin to new kinds of transport phenomena under extremes.
Collisional transport and simulations are presented in Chap. 7.
The high-power laser is a unique source of secondary coherent and incoherent
radiation, of high electromagnetic harmonics, of black body radiation, of X-ray line
and bremsstrahlung radiation, and of gammas. Photons are the most noble kind of
matter. They do not interact with themselves but they do so strongly with charged
matter. They have got energy and momentum and make widely use of these
Preface vii
properties to heat matter to extreme temperatures and to impress pronounced

structures onto matter. They generate superthermal electrons which, in turn, pass
part of their energy to the acceleration of ions in the Megavolt regime and another
part into a wide spectrum of secondary radiation. This is Chap. 8.
The last part, Chap. 9, is dedicated to high-power laser applications: Terahertz
radiation, X-ray lasing, short wavelength radiation from harmonics, novel schemes
of ion and wake field electron acceleration, and laser induced inertial fusion.
High-power laser interaction with matter leads to new states of matter and opens a
wide new field in physics of radiation, plasma production, and hot matter.
The present work is intended as a textbook for students, a help for the researcher
at the desk, and an aid for the experimentalist and the engineer in the laboratory.
The specialist may find the glossary of basic formulas and numerical constants
helpful. To offer something useful to all readers the exposure starts from simple
models and intuitive pictures, proceeds gradually to more elaborated schemes and
ends, possibly, with specific applications. Ending the presentation with the state
of the art in present research is one concern of the author. The prerequisites of
knowledge are at Bachelors level: Basic knowledge of classical mechanics,
Maxwell’s equations, phenomenological thermodynamics, and thermostatistics,
basic quantum mechanics. All concepts lying beyond are developed in the book
when and where they are needed. Use of physical intuition, possibly concise pre-
sentation combined with adequate formal rigor has been a guide for the writer.
Formulas may come and pass, pictures persist.
How to Read the Book?
Nobody has enough time to read an entire book. It is the reader’s free choice how
many pages he is able to persevere and when to stop reading and assimilating. The
newcomer may have much interest in the fundamental outline of a subject and
perhaps an interest in solving some of the exercises in section of Problems and in
answering some questions in the section Self-assessment. In general both are not
difficult, except a few of them. The glossary is the index of the most important and
most frequently used definitions and formulas in analytic work and computer
simulations, and in estimates accompanying the experiment. Their origin and limits
of applicability are easily found by their numbers which are the same as in the text.
Both, the student and the advanced researcher may find them useful. Finally, going
through the assessment may stimulate the student and the professor; the latter as an
aid for preparing his own questions, certainly more original and deeper, in the
students’ examinations.
The best book is that which is fun to read. For such a purpose the author
presented a modest collection of arguments generally not found in a textbook of
plasma physics, like a simplified derivation of Landau damping (almost all authors
follow Landau’s procedure on shifting the integration contour), a discussion of the
Coulomb logarithm, a criterion on the validity of the classical Maxwell equations,
viii Preface
on the quantization of the radiation field, on the moon as a Schrödinger problem

(why does the moon not fall onto the earth like the excited electron decays in the
atom? The moon does fall!), on the importance, usefulness, and ubiquity of adia-
batic invariants in physics, in particular in thermodynamics (entropy is an adiabatic
invariant), Feynman’s optical Bloch model (just for its beauty), etc.. The student
(and anybody else?) may wonder why there is a factor of 2 in the denominator
of the magnetic pressure, and in the Alfvén velocity there it is missing; Newton had
the analogous problem with the sound speed. The moon, looked at as a hydrogen
quantum system, may find itself in a Rydberg state of what order of magnitude, and
this principal quantum number would change by how much after the impact of 1
microgram mass at 1 km speed? Can a free electron gain energy over an entire cycle
of oscillation from a monochromatic electric wave? What is the physics behind
uphill acceleration? Which energy is negative in a negative energy wave? How to
modify Maxwell’s equations to make them compatible with Newtonian mechanics?
How does the relativistic Doppler effect read in the homogeneous medium? Why is
the Lagrangian of a mass point the difference of kinetic and potential energy and not
their sum or some other function of them? A collection of problems and questions
may serve as a test but they can never replace a scientific discussion. Plasma
physics is interdisciplinary. Cross connections to the physics as a whole are strong
incentives.
Citations
There exists an avalanche of publications to the subject of the book, excellent ideas,
excellent quality. The author’s aim has been to cite some first papers (not sys-
tematically done) and some very new papers. Sometimes the criterion was not to
cite papers which are referenced all the time by most of the authors, so no further
need. After all the author is aware of the fact that too many references may disturb
the flux of reading a textbook; he tries to limit them thereby being unjust in the
sense that many most excellent papers remain unreferenced.
Nomenclature
The use of mathematical symbols throughout the text is standard. The only
exception is made with the scalar product of vectors by omitting the dot between
the vector symbols, e.g. ab stands for a b and ðarÞb is used for the derivative
a rb of vector b along a.
Preface ix
Acknowledgements
The continuous assistance of Dr. Markus Rosenstihl concerning all problems with
the computer is gratefully acknowledged in the first place. The author is further
indebted for multiple help in computer problems to Ibrahim El Idrissi and to
Christian Kolb. For numerous scientific discussions, multiple thanks go to Prof.
Gernot Alber at the Technical University of Darmstadt, to Prof. Dieter Bauer at the
University of Rostock, and to Dr. Klaus Eidmann from the Max Planck Institute for
Quantum Optics in Munich.
The author is particularly indebted to Ute Heuser from the Springer Verlag in
Heidelberg for her valuable advise with respect to structuring and editing, for her
continuous encouragement and for her numerous suggestions.
Writing a book is a major enterprise. As such it contains a personal aspect. The
author is very much indebted to Charlotte Tiedt. She has been all the time a helpful
and encouraging friend and has followed the progress of the book with great
patience.
Darmstadt, Germany Peter Mulser

Contents
1 Hot Matter from High-Power Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Laser and Ion Beam Generated Hot Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 High Power Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Wavelengths of Common High Power Lasers . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.3 The Bird of the Laser Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1.4 Multiphoton and Field Ionization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2 Basic Properties of the Laser Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.1 Collisional Absorption and Plasma Heating . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.2 Thermalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.2.3 Ideal Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.3 The Dynamics of the Laser Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.3.1 Basic Elements of Plasma Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.3.2 Fully Developed Plasma Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
1.4 Superintense Laser-Matter Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
1.4.1 Collisionless Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
1.4.2 Microstructured Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
1.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
1.6 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
1.7 Self-assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
1.8 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
1.9 Further Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2 Single Particle Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
2.1 Non-relativistic Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.1.1 Electron in the Electromagnetic Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.1.2 Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Description of Motion . . . . . 82
2.1.3 Charged Particle Motion in Crossed Static Fields . . . . . . . 97
2.1.4 Slow Motions and Adiabatic Invariants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
2.1.5 Poincaré–Cartan Invariant and the Adiabatic
Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
xi
xii Contents
2.1.6 The Ponderomotive Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

2.1.7 Particle Trapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
2.1.8 Binary Collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
2.2 Relativistic Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
2.2.1 Essential Relativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
2.2.2 Scalars, Contravariant, and Covariant Quantities . . . . . . . 162
2.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
2.4 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
2.5 Self-assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
2.6 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
3 Laser Induced Fluid Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
3.1 Conservation Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
3.1.1 Particle and Mass Conservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
3.1.2 Navier–Stokes Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
3.1.3 Energy Conservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
3.1.4 Two-Fluid Model of the Fully Ionized Plasma . . . . . . . . . 189
3.1.5 Standard Form of the Conservation Equations . . . . . . . . . 195
3.1.6 Collective Ponderomotive Force Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
3.1.7 The Lagrangian Picture of the Fluid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
3.1.8 Kinetic Foundation of Diluted Fluids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
3.2 Relativistic Fluid Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
3.2.1 Ideal Fluid Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
3.2.2 Moment Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
3.3 Similarity Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
3.3.1 Dimensional Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
3.3.2 Riemann Invariants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
3.3.3 The Plane Shock Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
3.3.4 From Ablation to Radiation Pressure Under
Heat Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
3.5 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
3.6 Self-assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
3.7 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
4 Hot Matter in Thermal Equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
4.1 Phenomenological Approach to Entropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
4.1.1 The Fundamental Laws of Thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . 277
4.1.2 Properties and Applications of Entropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
4.1.3 Thermodynamic Potentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Contents xiii
4.2 LTE: The Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

4.2.1 Evolution to Thermal Equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
4.3 Essentials of Thermostatistics: Classical Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
4.3.1 The Fundamental Principle of Equilibrium
Thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
4.4 Essentials of Thermostatistics: Quantum Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
4.4.1 The Density Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
4.4.2 Ideal Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
4.5 From Warm Dense Matter to Hot Dense Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
4.5.1 The Equation of State of Dense Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
4.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
4.7 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
4.8 Self-assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
4.9 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
5 Waves in the Ideal Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
5.1 The Maxwell Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
5.2 Wave Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
5.2.1 The Poynting Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
5.2.2 Maxwell’s Stress Tensor T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
5.3 Covariant Electrodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
5.3.1 The Electromagnetic Field Tensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
5.3.2 Lorentz Scalars and Lorentz Invariant Operators . . . . . . . 368
5.3.3 Gauge Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
5.4 Eigenmodes of the Uniform Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
5.4.1 The Unmagnetized Fully Ionized Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
5.4.2 The Magnetized Fully Ionized Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
5.5 Waves in the Inhomogeneous Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
5.5.1 From the Transverse Wave to the Classical Photon . . . . . 408
5.5.2 Wave Amplitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
5.5.3 High Frequency Energy Fluxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
5.5.4 Collisional Absorption in Special Density Profiles . . . . . . 429
5.5.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
5.6 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
5.7 Self-assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
5.8 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
xiv Contents
6 Unstable Fluids and Plasmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

6.1 Fluid Dynamic Instabilities and Unstable Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
6.1.1 Basic Unstable Phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
6.1.2 Summary: Plasma Modes, Energy Densities,
and Fluxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
6.2 Mode Conversion: Resonance Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
6.2.1 Inhomogeneous Stokes Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
6.2.2 Linear Resonance Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
6.2.3 Comparison with Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
6.3 Nonlinear Resonance Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
6.3.1 Wave Breaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
6.3.2 Hot Electron Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
6.3.3 Kinetic Theory of Wave Breaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
6.4 Resonant Three Wave Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
6.4.1 Overview and Physical Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
6.4.2 The Doppler Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
6.4.3 Growth Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
6.4.4 Parametric Amplification of Pulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
6.4.5 Quasi-particle Conservation and Manley-Rowe
Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
6.4.6 Light Scattering at Relativistic Intensities . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
6.4.7 Self Focusing and Filamentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
6.4.8 Modulational Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
6.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
6.6 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539
6.7 Self-assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
6.8 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546
7 Transport in Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
7.1 Collision Frequencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
7.1.1 Screening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
7.1.2 Reduction of Simultaneous Interactions to a Sequence
of Collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
7.1.3 Jackson’s Model of Coulomb Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
7.1.4 The Oscillator Model of Uniform Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
7.1.5 Debye Shielding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
7.2 Collisional Absorption in the Thermal Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561
7.2.1 The Ballistic Model of Collisional Absorption . . . . . . . . . 562
7.2.2 The Dielectric Model of Collisional Absorption . . . . . . . . 566
7.2.3 Ion Beam Stopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
7.2.4 Collision Frequency in the Classical Plasma . . . . . . . . . . 578
7.2.5 Supplements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
Contents xv
7.3 Collisionless Absorption from Overdense Plasma Surfaces . . . . . 588

7.3.1 Overview and Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
7.3.2 Anharmonic Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
7.3.3 1D PIC Simulations of Relativistic Laser-Overdense
Matter Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
7.3.4 Fast Electrons and Energy Partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604
7.4 On Scaling Laws of the “Hot Electrons” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
7.5 Pressure-Viscosity Tensor and Friction in Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
7.5.1 Coefficients of Viscosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
7.5.2 Friction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
7.6 Particle Diffusion and Thermal Conduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614
7.6.1 Thermal Conduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616
7.6.2 je from Boltzmann Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
7.7 Nonideal Plasma: The BBGKY Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619
7.7.1 The Liouville Equation and Its Reduced Moments . . . . . . 619
7.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624
7.9 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625
7.10 Self-assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
7.11 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
8 Radiation from Hot Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
8.1 The Radiating Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
8.1.1 The Quantized Maxwell Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
8.1.2 The Optical Bloch Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
8.1.3 Coherent Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
8.1.4 Spontaneous Radiation from Single Particles . . . . . . . . . . 648
8.1.5 Bremsstrahlung from the Thermal Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . 653
8.2 Radiation Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655
8.2.1 The Transport Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656
8.2.2 Thermal Radiation from a Plane Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660
8.2.3 Diffusion Model of Radiation Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665
8.3 Radiation Reaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
8.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 669
8.5 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671
8.6 Self-assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672
8.7 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
xvi Contents
9 Applications of High Power Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677

9.1 The Nonlinear Response of the Plasma to the Laser . . . . . . . . . . 677
9.2 Generation of Radiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 678
9.2.1 Terahertz Radiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 678
9.2.2 X Ray Lasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
9.2.3 High Harmonic Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
9.3 Controlled Nuclear Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691
9.3.1 Plan and Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691
9.3.2 Compressional Pellet Heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
9.3.3 Fast Ignition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695
9.4 Ion Acceleration by TNSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 696
9.4.1 Dynamic Model of Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697
9.4.2 Static Models of Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700
9.5 Radiation Pressure Acceleration (RPA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704
9.6 Wake Field Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707
9.6.1 The Nonlinear Wake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 708
9.6.2 Energy Gain from the Electron Plasma Wave . . . . . . . . . 709
9.6.3 Nonlinear Bubble and Monoenergetic Beams . . . . . . . . . 709
9.7 Thomson Scattering as a Plasma Diagnostic Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
9.7.1 Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
9.8 Digression On: Classical or Quantum Treatment? . . . . . . . . . . . . 714
9.8.1 A Strong Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715
9.8.2 High E and High T Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717
9.8.3 The Interplay of Quantum Theory and Classical
Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
9.8.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
9.9 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 720
9.10 Self-assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721
9.11 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729
Chapter 1
Hot Matter from High-Power Lasers
1.1 Laser and Ion Beam Generated Hot Matter
There are as many types of hot matter and plasmas as technical methods to produce
them: Discharges, radiation induced plasmas, pressure generated plasmas, plasmas
from dynamic processes, and from particle beams. The widest class of plasmas,
concerning their spatial extension as well as their variety, long living, and stable
confinement, is found in the cosmos [1]. A special class of plasmas on earth is
represented by conducting solids. There the high Fermi pressure of the electrons is
neutralized by the Coulomb attraction of the ions, in contrast to the large scale cosmic
and laboratory confinement by magnetic fields, gravitation, or the inertia of matter.
Plasmas can be produced by all kinds of intense energy sources. Here, the laser
plays a special role. Photons do not interact with each other and can therefore be
focused to arbitrary high energy density. As they interact with charged matter, prefer-
entially with the light electrons, high power lasers are capable of producing extremely
hot plasmas. At equal energy photons exhibit the highest momentum per particle of
all matter. As the resulting radiation pressure in the laboratory may exceed the gas
pressure in the center of the sun it is not surprising that the laser induces a whole
variety of stable and unstable nonlinear structures in the plasma and generates fast
electrons, and accelerates electron bunches up to several GeV on the length of 1 cm
only. Fast electron jets in turn give rise to collimated intense radiation sources. High
power laser beams are made of low energy photons. In concomitance severe limits are
imposed to them in penetrating dense matter. For this reason laser generated plasmas
are by far less dense in the mean than solids but hotter than any other plasma on earth.
Dense, compressed matter and nonideal plasmas can be generated with intense
beams of heavy ions. A particular advantage is their well defined spatial range due
to their stiffness and the Bragg peak; it makes them a powerful instrument for hot
matter production and technical and medical applications. Among the latter cancer
therapy is on the top of the list.
The alternative to the high power laser is the free electron laser (XFEL) with
its energetic photons up to 25 keV, intensities by some 1019 Wcm−2 , and extremely
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 1

P. Mulser, Hot Matter from High-Power Lasers, Graduate Texts in Physics,
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2 1 Hot Matter from High-Power Lasers
high brilliance, however modest energy per X ray bunch of 25 − 100 fs duration.
The XFEL is the ideal instrument for producing warm dense matter (WDM) up to
a few eV and to generate new kinds of plasma states by extremely fast electronic
transitions (e. g. nonthermal melting) in the few tens femtosecond domain. The free
electron laser is a unique instrument for atomic and nuclear physics research; the
high power long wavelength laser shows its prominence as a generator of all kinds
of radiation from Terahertz to hardest gammas.
The particle accelerator has been the most successful scientific tool of the past
century. The laser is the most successful scientific tool of the present century.
1.1.1 High Power Lasers
The physics of high power laser interaction is considered in the intensity range I
from 1010 to some 1022 Wcm−2 . Matter exposed to ion beams is considered in the
beam energy range from 1 to 100 MeV per nucleon for a variety of charge states.
The characteristic pulse length at moderate laser intensities up to the order of
1016 Wcm−2 is from 1 ns (=10−9 s) to several 10 ns. Picosecond lasers extend up to
1020 Wcm−2 and play in the sub ns time domain down to 1 ps (=10−12 s). Exper-
iments with laser pulses in the relativistic intensity range I 1018 − 1022 Wcm−2
are performed from 5 fs (=10−15 s, shortest pulse in the near infarred) to hundreds
of fs. Laser pulses of attosecond (=10−18 s) length need a broad bandwidth and
are therefore composed of high harmonics from fs Ti:Sa and Nd laser pulses. The
high intensities at all pulse lengths are reached by beam focusing from 1 to 100
wavelengths in diameter.
1.1.2 Wavelengths of Common High Power Lasers
Laser typ λ ω ω
CO2 laser 10600 nm 1.78×1014 s−1 0.12 eV
Iodine laser 1315 nm 1.46 ×1015 s−1 0.96 eV
Neodymium (Nd) laser 1060 nm 1.78 ×1015 s−1 1.17 eV
Titanium-Saphir (Ti:Sa) laser 800 nm 2.36 ×1015 s−1 1.55 eV
3rd harmonic (Ti:Sa) laser 260 nm 7.17 ×1015 s−1 4.65 eV
Krypton-Fluorid (KrF) laser 248 nm 7.59 ×1015 s−1 5.0 eV
Free Electron Laser (FEL)
FLASH (DESY Hamburg) 4.2–45 nm 4.5 ×1017 –1.1×1016 s−1 304–28.4 eV
XFEL (DESY Hamburg) 0.05 nm 3.8 ×1019 s−1 23 keV
1.1 Laser and Ion Beam Generated Hot Matter 3
1.1.3 The Bird of the Laser Plasma
1.1.3.1 Modelling of the Laser Field
Before the availability of intense laser beams the dynamics of matter in the radiation
field, in particular spectroscopy and optics, was adequately described by taking the
fields of the unperturbed matter as the leading quantities and the radiation field as
a small disturbance. With the dynamics of matter in the intense fields the situation
has been reversed, the laser provides for the main field and the atomic fields are the
perturbing quantity. Except rare situations the radiation field E(x, t) can be modelled
as a plane monochromatic wave of amplitude Ê, frequency ω, and wave vector k,
E(x, t) = Êei(kx−ωt) . (1.1)
It is a classical, unquantized field obeying Maxwell’s equations. The intensity I is

the Poynting vector S averaged over one oscillation,
1
I = ε0 c 2 E × B = ε0 ck0 ÊÊ∗ ; k0 = k/|k|; ε0 = 8.85 × 10−12 IU. (1.2)
2
The field amplitude is given numerically by
Ê [Vcm−1 ] = 27.5 × (I [Wcm−2 ]) 2 .

1
(1.3)
For comparison, in the hydrogen atom the electron on its first Bohr orbit “sees” the
field E = 4.5 × 109 Vcm−1 , corresponding to the laser intensity I = 3 × 1016 Wcm−2 .
The amplitude Ê = 4 × 1012 Vcm−1 from the actual I = 2 × 1022 Wcm−2 is the
highest macroscopic field on earth. A third important quantity is the mean oscilla-
tion energy W of the free electron in the linearly polarized laser field,
e2
W = EE∗ ∼ I λ2 . (1.4)
4m e ω 2
W is 1.0 keV at 1016 Wcm−2 and 96 keV at 1018 Wcm−2 , both Nd. In circular polar-
ization it is twice these values. For the relativistic expressions of W see Chap. 2.
1.1.3.2 Laser Induced Breakdown in Matter
When a laser of 1010 − 1011 Wcm−2 is focused in air a brilliant flash of bluish-
white light appears at the lens focus, accompanied by a distinctive cracking noise:
A gas breakdown has occurred and a hot plasma, 100 eV (= 106 K) has formed in
sub-ns time. This phenomenon has been reported first by Maker et al. in 1963 [2]
and subsequently by numerous investigators in all details, see [3] and the references
Fig. 1.1 Particle-in-cell

simulation of plasma
production from solid
hydrogen by laser. Parallel
laser beam impinges from
right, intensity
I = 1015 Wcm−2 . Dark bow
is the compressed cold
matter in the shock travelling
into the target. Dots: rarefied
plasma flowing against the
laser beam. Shock width is
broadened by numerical
diffusion in the artificial
viscosity
therein. The plasma spark shows a marked threshold behaviour of the incident laser
intensity. When the laser intensity is reduced to its threshold value, gas breakdown
becomes a sporadic event, the threshold intensity for initiating the breakdown can
vary up to a factor of 2. At intensities well above threshold spark ignition occurs
easily and in a reproducible manner. The stochastic behaviour at threshold induces
to assume that it is intimately connected with the stochastic presence of a first few free
electrons in the focus volume of the gas. Systematic investigations with ns Nd lasers
at fundamental and second harmonic wavelengths λ = 1064 nm and λ = 532 nm,
respectively, in pure gases of pressures between 150 and 3000 Torr show typical
thresholds between Ithr = 1012 and 1014 Wcm−2 . The dependence on pressure p
decreases as Ithr ∼ p −n , with n = 0.78 at 2ωNd and n = 0.69 at the fundamental ωNd
for hydrogen, n = 0.65 for air, and is much weaker, n ≈ 0.4 in other gases [4]. As a
general experience dielectric matter in all phases, gas, liquid, solid, transforms rapidly
into plasma as soon as a threshold intensity is exceeded, irrespective of the photon
energy. At equal intensities plasma formation with a CO2 laser may sometimes
happen to be faster than with the Nd laser of ten times shorter wavelength, just
contrary to what is known from the linear photo effect.
As a typical example the transformation of a solid hydrogen sample into laser
plasma under the action of a Nd laser beam is illustrated by Fig. 1.1 when focused to an
intensity of I = 1015 Wcm−2 in a spot of 50 µm radius size. At the very beginning the
flat target is transparent to the laser light. After breakdown has occurred somewhere
beneath the target surface violent ionization of the hydrogen by electron impact sets
in. The free electron density soon reaches values exceeding a critical density just there
and blocks the beam from propagating further. If initially this critical zone has a wider
extension it is forced to reduce to a layer of a fraction of a wavelength thickness by
the free electron density increasing up to the density of the bound electrons in the
solid. From this instant on an equilibrium establishes between further absorption and
heating to higher pressures, and, concurrently, attenuating the pressure increase by
expansion forward against the laser beam and backward by compressing the cold
solid to form a shock wave propagating into the solid. With ongoing time a crater
forms in the target by plasma ablation from the shock and rarefying into the vacuum,
and cold matter receding in the compressed shock. Shock front and plasma ablation
zone remain attached to each other by lateral expulsion of plasma and pushing aside
accumulated cold target matter, marked by the dark bow shock in the Figure.
1.1.4 Multiphoton and Field Ionization
Mysterious First Free Electron

The question about the origin of the first few unbound electrons leads into rich and
fascinating physics immediately once trying to answer the problem decently. The
electron heating mechanism by electron-ion collisions (collisional heating, inverse
bremsstrahlung) and subsequent thermal ionization can work only if a few free
electrons in the region of high laser intensity are present. Typical ionization energies
E I of atoms and molecules range from about 4 to 25 eV (Cs 3.9, H 13.6, He 24.6 eV),
and hence none of the long wavelength high-power lasers of the Table above are
capable of directly photo-ionizing them, except Cs by the KrF or the 3rd harmonic
Nd laser. In a perfectly neutral environment at threshold intensity the only possible
mechanism is multiphoton ionization. It consists of the “simultaneous” absorption
of n ≥ E I /ω photons to satisfy the atomic process
A + nω → A+ + e− . (1.5)
As long as both, photon energy ω and ionization energy E I are large compared to
the energy W of the electron oscillating in the laser field, multiphoton ionization can
be treated quantum mechanically by the perturbation technique, see, e.g. [5]. The n-
photon process starts with the nth order Dirac perturbation theory. The single bound
electron oscillates over many cycles in the laser field of frequency ω before becoming
free, the product ωτ I , τ I the ionization time, is much larger than unity. A typical
measure of τ I is expressed by the Rabi frequency ω R = μ Ê/, µ dipole moment. So
at INd = 1012 Wcm−2 for ω R ωNd /40 and ωNd τ I 250 results. With increasing
laser intensity above threshold ionization (ATI), level shift due to the dynamical Stark
effect and higher level excitation become relevant [5, 6]. In concomitance, higher
order diagrams can no longer be disregarded a priori and the standard perturbation
method may no longer be adequate. Various approaches have therefore been used at
moderately high intensities (I 1016 Wcm−2 ) [7]. Furthermore, as was explicitly
stressed in [8], the adequacy of a perturbation analysis strongly depends on the rise
time of the laser pulse also. Ionization in stronger laser fields may end in considerable
complexity. Meanwhile a rich specialized literature exists on the subject.
The essence of multiphoton ionization can be made clear in classical terms.

Under the influence of the laser field the electron cloud in the atom is modulated
at the laser frequency ω. Subsequently impinging coherent photons impose
themselves a modulation at frequency ω on the already existing ω modulation.
Thus, a 2ω modulation arises on which a new, 3ω modulation is impressed by
subsequent coherent photons, etc. The n times modulated electron cloud of the
atom or molecule emits photons of nω which in turn can be auto-absorbed
by the electron to get free in an Auger like process. If now an r ω modulation
resonates with an atomic level the atom can accumulate, in linear terms, an
arbitrarily high amount of energy to facilitate remarkably the multiphoton
transition. Thereby a high density of resonant levels may strongly cooperate.
√
Beam coherence is essential. Chaotic light creates, on the average, nω
photons only out of the same photon density.
The ionization cross sections depend sensitively on the individual matrix elements
between virtual states, and may change by orders of magnitude when the laser fre-
quency or a multiple of it approaches a transition frequency ωi j = (E i − E j )/ of
two energy levels [5, 9]. Fortunately, as the photon number n needed for ioniza-
tion increases, the ω-dependence greatly decreases and approaches a nonresonant
behavior; the ionization probability Pn assumes the structure
Pn σn I n (1.6)
in a wide range of intensities. It can be shown by several independent arguments

that the nth root of the generalized cross section σn for multiphoton ionization, with
1/n
the contributions from higher order diagrams included, σn is almost a constant [8],
and therefore ln Pn plotted as a function of ln I is a straight line, as was confirmed
by numerous experiments [10–13]. Deviations from this behaviour only occur at
resonances, close to saturation (when Pn → 1), or when nonsequential ionization
[14] is important, see Fig. 1.2. It is apparent that the measured He2+ yield is many
orders of magnitude higher than expected from a sequential “single active electron”
ionization process, sketched by the solid graphs in the plot. At around 1015 Wcm−2
the He2+ curve changes slope in the nonsequential “knie” to merge with the single
active electron graph. It happens when the production of the previous charge state
Fig. 1.2 Experimental ion

yields for He+ and He2+
after the interaction with a
160 fs 780 nm laser pulse.
The solid lines are the
theoretically expected yields
when a sequential, single
active electron ionization
scenario is assumed. It is
seen that below 1015 Wcm−2
the measured He2+ yield is
many orders of magnitude
greater before it merges with
the theoretical prediction.
The deviation from the
sequential rate (solid curve)
is the so-called
nonsequential ionization
(NSDI) “knee”. From [14]
He+ enters into its saturation stage, indicating a strong correlation of the two electrons
in the ionization dynamics. The observed increase in ionization beyond saturation in
Fig. 1.2 stems from the increase of the spark in time [15].
The calculated and measured thresholds for appreciable multiphoton ionization
lie all above 1012 Wcm−2 or an order of magnitude higher and there is no doubt
that in very pure atomic gases (and probably very pure liquid or solid dielectrics
with extremely clean surfaces) these are the thresholds for plasma formation by
focused laser beams [16]. On the other hand, it is known that normally breakdown
occurs at much lower intensities, sometimes as low as 109 Wcm−2 [17]. From this
discrepancy the question arises where the “first” electron comes from. Although
in general this is an unsolved question, many reasons for the presence of a few
free electrons before the arrival of the laser pulse can be given: Ionization by UV
light from outside or from the flash lamps of the laser, aerosols or dust particles
carrying very weakly bound electrons, negative surface charges on solids. Densely
spaced energy levels in molecules may facilitate multiphoton ionization, or two-step
ionization-dissociation processes which, for instance in Cs, require much lower laser
intensity. Hence, no general answer to the question is to be expected, nor would such
one be very convincing. Rather the search for further individual well-defined effects
Fig. 1.3 Deformation of the atomic potential U ∼ r −α by the time-dependent laser field. The
electron from the energy level 1 is free, electrons 2 and 3 exhibit finite tunnelling probabilities. xm
is the distance of the maximum of U from the nucleus; U0 = Um /2. The tunnelling probability
decreases rapidly with increasing difference eUm −
is indicated which may lead to breakdown threshold lowering in the actual case under
consideration [18–22].
1.1.4.1 Field Ionization
Under the action of a strong field the first bound electron is removed from the nucleus
in a fraction of an oscillation period. This is revealed already by a simple classical
estimate. A bound electron is typically confined within a distance d = 0.12 nm in
nearly all solid targets (d = lattice constant) or isolated atoms. In moving across a
lattice constant in the laser field E = Ê cos ωt it gains the energy = eEd. Its max-
imum value is max = e Êd, i.e., max = 33 and 330 eV at 1016 and 1018 Wcm−2 ,
respectively. In any case this is larger than the ionization energy E I of an outer
electron. The time dependence of the laser field can be suppressed since, in the
ground state the internal frequency ωe E I / is generally much higher than the
laser frequency. In addition, the laser field imparts an additional high velocity to the
electron so that the time t in E may be treated merely as a parameter even for excited
states. For illustration the minimum crossing time τ when starting from zero veloc-
ity is τ = (2m e d/e Ê)1/2 . At I = 1016 Wcm−2 τ = 2 × 10−16 s; at I = 1018 Wcm−2
it is 10 times shorter. The cycle times for Nd and KrF are 3.5 × 10−15 and
8 × 10−16 s.
In a first approach to the quantum picture field ionization may be treated in the
Coulomb field that is deformed by the laser, see Fig. 1.3. The atomic potential is
assumed to follow the power law U (r ) ∼ r −α , 0 < α < 2. With the laser field super-
posed in x direction it assumes along r = x
e2
eU = −Z K r −α − eE x; K = (1.7)
4πε0
with Z the effective ion charge. Maximum potential Um , radial distance xm , and U0
are
1/(α+1)
αZ K
eUm = −Z K xm−α − eE xm , xm = , U0 = Um /2. (1.8)
eE
1
For the Coulomb potential U holds α = 1 and xm = xC = (Z K /eE) 2 , Um = UC =
−2E xm . The variations of xm and Um with α are best seen in the following repre-
sentation of (1.8)
1/(1+α)
ZK
xmα = (αxC2 )1/(1+α) , Um = α−α/(1+α) + α1/(1+α) E α/(1+α) .
e
Close to Um , U (x) is well approximated by a parabola with its vertex at xm . A

classical electron can escape from the atom if its energy level lies above Um = 2U0 .
The resulting ionization rate turns out to be too low. The reason is that the electron
captured in the atom is a quantum mechanical entity endowed with the capability
of tunnelling through the potential wall and to be slowed down above its top. This
behaviour can be accounted for by the tunnelling probability T , i.e. the transmission
factor, through the parabolic potential barrier of our model. For energies Um it
is determined by [23],
m 1/2 − eU 2
1 e m ∂ U eU0
T = , ζ = 2π , k = −e = −α(α + 1) 2 .
1 + e−ζ k ∂x 2 xm xm
(1.9)
More precisely, the expression of T is valid for |/eUm − 1| 1/10. For = eUm the
transmission factor is T = 1/2, against Tclassical = 1. Thus, there is enough time for an
electron with bound energy ≥ eUm (E = Ê) to be ionized. In Fig. 1.4 Um (E = Ê)
as a function of the effective ion charge Z for the laser intensities from I = 1016 to
1024 Wcm−2 and the ionization potentials of the isolated atoms C, Al, Cu, Ag, and
Au as functions of the real charge state Z are reported. Under the assumption that
the potentials have approximately hydrogen-like structure, i.e., Z eff Z , the various
ionization degrees by multiphoton absorption are determined from the intersection
points in the figure. For example, the laser intensity I = 1018 Wcm−2 is capable of
producing the minimum ionization stages C4+ , Al9+ , Cu15+ , Ag18+ , Au22+ . At 100
times higher intensity the result is C6+ , Al11+ , Cu26+ , Ag37+ , Au51+ .
The tunnelling time τ I for an electron in an energy state eUm is given by
Fig. 1.4 Field ionization of C, Al, Cu, Ag, and Au in the potential assumed Coulomb-like. the
maxima Um of the ionic potentials are determined for the laser intensities I = 1016 − 1024 Wcm−2
as functions of Z when the laser field reaches its maximum at E = Ê. The degree of ionization of
the isolated atoms results from the intersection points of the corresponding graphs
1/2
1 me
τI = × min(d, 2xm ), (1.10)
T 2||
where d is the interionic distance. Under the condition of τ I π/ω, τ I can be

regarded as the mean lifetime of the bound energy state . The potential maxima Um
as well as their positions xm vary like Z 1/2 for fixed laser intensity.
The influence of tunnelling is studied by calculating T and τ I for various energies
in the neighbourhood of eUm . Evaluation of T from (1.9) shows that only very
close to Um the criterion τ I π/ω is well fulfilled for energies < eUm . At INd =
1016 Wcm−2 an energy lower by 5% only than eUm leads still to short enough times for
static tunnelling at Z 5, no longer however for KrF at the same intensity. Tunnelling
at < eUm becomes more significant with increasing intensity at low Z -values and
decreases with Z increasing. In general, beyond laser intensities I 1017 Wcm−2
the electron behaves almost classical, tunnelling does not play a major role.
A rough criterion for discerning which of the two processes prevails, multiphoton
or field ionization, may be found in the Keldish parameter γ K [24]
1/2
EI
γK = . (1.11)
2W
It can be interpreted as the ratio of the tunnelling time and the laser period, γ K = ωτ I .
It indicates whether the tunnelling process is fast on the inneratomic time scale
or the laser field reverses sign before tunnelling is completed. Hence, γ K > 1 ⇒
multiphoton ionization, γ K < 1 ⇒ tunnelling ionization.
Initial Kinetic Temperature

For several applications (e.g., spectroscopy, X-ray laser development) plasmas of
very high ionization degree at low electron temperatures are of great interest for
violent recombination, and eventual population inversion of metastable levels are
to be expected. For an estimate the determination of the electron temperature just
immediately after field ionization has occurred is of interest. An effective kinetic
temperature T0 is found in the following way.
In the static classical picture an electron is free as soon as the laser field amplitude
Ê, the so called critical field is such that |eUm | equals the ionization energy E I . The
electron may arrive at xm with a kinetic energy lower than its ground state kinetic
energy E kin = α/(α − 2) and subsequently gain additional kinetic energy downhill
up to the point where it becomes a free particle. During this ionization process the
electron undergoes a Stark shift from the laser field at the nucleus and an adiabatic
lowering of its undisturbed energy state by the fraction (r Z /xm )2/3 , r Z Bohr radius
(for the adiabatic invariance of r 1/2 the reader may see Chap. 2). Both effects and
the kinetic energy of the freed electron have been calculated in terms of a classical
Hamiltonian [25]. As a result, no electron escapes below a threshold of E kin =
||/3, however an upper bound for it does not exist. Accompanying Monte Carlo
calculations with random initial conditions have provided additional confirmation.
As a rule, under the action of a strong laser field both classical as well as numerous
quantum calculations in the Coulomb field led to the average ejection energy [26]
1
E kin = E I = k B T0 . (1.12)
2
Separate analysis has to show how close T0 is to a true equilibrium electron temper-
ature Te . The reader may be surprised for the low average ejection energy. Though it
has a simple explanation. The maximum potential depression Um exhibits the longest
opening time and the shortest velocity of the quasi-free electron. Note, the free elec-
tron assumes oscillation velocity zero when the laser field reaches its extrema.
1.2 Basic Properties of the Laser Plasma
1.2.1 Collisional Absorption and Plasma Heating
Multiphoton and field ionization lead to a rapidly growing electron population in

matter. At a given threshold the two processes go over into ionization by electron-
atom and electron-molecule collisions of the swift thermal electrons and induce an
avalanche like increase of their concentration. High electron concentration of particle
density n e in the laser focus leads to self-trapping of the electron cloud by the ions:
The mutual collective Coulomb attraction becomes such as to inhibit the escape of
an appreciable fraction of electrons out of the laser beam focus. The criterion for
self-trapping is determined by the Debye length λ D ,

1/2
ε0 k B Te
λD = (1.13)
n e e2
to be smaller than the minimum diameter d of the ion cloud. Once λ D /d 1 is

fulfilled the ion cloud results quasineutral, |n e − Z n i | n e , and its properties are no
longer determined by its shape. The cloud has formed a thermal plasma, characterized
by its intrinsic properties of electron and ion densities n e , n i , and electron and ion
temperatures Te , Ti . Numerically the Debye length is given by
1/2 1/2
Te [K] Te [eV]
λ D [cm] = 6.9 = 743 . (1.14)
ne [cm−3 ] ne [cm−3 ]
The Debye length tells over what distance an equilibrium is established

between the volatility of the thermal electrons and their restoring force by the
attraction of the quasistatic ions. To determine this equilibrium length imagine
a stripe of homogeneous plasma of width λ D . In equilibrium an electron which
escapes across spends the work −eEλ D . On the other hand, on the average
this is just the mean thermal energy m e vth2
/2 = k B Te /2 the electron is able to
deliver transversally. The equilibrium electric field E follows from Maxwell’s
equation ∂x E = −e(n e − Z n i )/ε0 . Under the reasonable estimate of
E e e ne e ne
∂x E = , − (n e − Z n i ) = − ⇒ E =− λD .
λD ε0 ε0 2 ε0 2
Substitution of this expression for E in the energy relation above yields λ D ,
1 e ne ε0 k B Te
−eEλ D = k B Te , E =− λ D ⇒ λ2D = .
2 ε0 2 n e e2
Uncorrelated thermal motion necessarily induces fluctuations in n e , however

they extend not much farther than a Debye length. Thus, on macroscopic
dimensions quasineutrality implies in the absence of external forces that n e +
Z n i can be identified with 2n e or 2Z n i , whereas the difference n e − Z n i to be
set to zero is only allowed if the electric field from the charge imbalance can
be neglected.
A numerical example may illustrate why the plasma is quasineutral over distances
much larger than λ D . Assume n e = 1020 cm−3 and Z n i − n e = 10−6 n e . The charge
imbalance creates a voltage over the distance d = 0.1cm of
1.2 Basic Properties of the Laser Plasma 13
e
V = (Z n i − n e )d2 = 9 × 105 V.
2ε0
In a thermal plasma an electron temperature of 1 MeV is needed to produce such a

potential difference.
The plasma composed of high Z ions will be partially ionized only. Its properties,
like electrical and thermal conductivity and viscosity, will depend on the interaction
of electrons and ions with ions of various degree of ionization and with neutrals.
However, in moderately high Z atoms the encounters between electrons and ions
may determine the plasma properties already at its partial ionization. In such a case
the so called model of the fully ionized plasma applies (although it may be ionized
to a few percent only). If not stated differently, here one species of ions of average
charge Z is assumed for simplicity. Once the conditions of a fully ionized plasma
are fulfilled further heating of the plasma by the laser is determined by the electrical
conductivity of the electrons. The irreversible process of heating means absorption of
radiation and transfer of the amount of energy eventually to internal plasma energy.
In the particle picture it is the annihilation of a photon and creation of a plasmon
or the energy transfer of the photon directly to an electron. The latter case is the
important process of collisional absorption. It is the inverse of what happens to an
electron when it is slowed down under the emission of a photon by bremsstrahlung.
Therefore collisional absorption is named synonymously inverse bremsstrahlung.
1.2.1.1 Collisional Absorption and the Drude Model
Collisional interaction of a particle with one or more other particles is a short range
event. It occurs during a time interval which is short compared with the change of
trajectory by exterior forces. The prototype of a collision is that of hard spheres.
The hard sphere model is used here because it reveals all essential aspects of a
collision, like irreversibility and energy transfer. To this aim let us consider Fig. 1.5.
The oscillating laser field has the direction indicated by the double arrow. In the elastic
collision of an electron of relative velocity v with an ion only its component normal to
the surface of the hard sphere is affected. At the instant t0 of the collision it turns into
its negative value. In a thermal plasma with the ions at rest electron-ion collisions do
not affect their distribution function f (ve ) because of equal likelihood for a collision
of ve and of −ve in the absence of a drift. In presence of the monochromatic laser
field E(x, t) = Ê cos(kx − ωt) the single electron experiences a drift velocity,
e
v(x, t) = ve + v̂ sin(kx − ωt); v̂ = Ê.
mω
Again, for symmetry reasons only the component v(x, t) = ve + v̂ sin(kx − ωt)
parallel to the laser field is of relevance; the component perpendicular to it because of
no drift is not affected by the collision. If the collision happens at the instant t = t0 ,
at an arbitrarily small instant t = t0 + ε later the following irreversible transition has
happened,
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eye and smiled, she responded with a stony stare, and turned away;
if I called to her, she paid not the slightest attention, except to
quicken her pace to a run. Indeed, she was a mournful loss in my
circle of small friends; she was always a merry little thing; a
wonderful adept at cat’s-cradle, and a patient, although derisive,
teacher.
However deeply I may have wounded Kakofel’s feelings, her
mother by no means shared the affront; for she was always the first
to arrive and the last to leave whenever a phonograph “recital” was
on hand; moreover, she invariably managed to secure a seat as near
as possible to the instrument, whence she could command the best
singers to come forward to sing or speak into the brass horn; I
usually dropped three or four imported cigarettes in her lap by way
of thanks. She was not what even an ecstatic imagination could
describe as beautiful, but she had a gentle, plaintive expression, and
this rueful look was emphasised by a droop at the left corner of her
mouth caused by the loss of all her teeth on that side. She was
extremely thin, every bone of her chest stood out almost in alto-
relievo, but she seemed, withal, to be very cheerful and, whenever
the phonograph showed off well its power of mimicry to some
surprised new-comer, she emitted “the loud laugh that speaks the
vacant mind.” The dim blue tattoo marks on the back of her hands
and on her legs bore witness that in her youth she had been the
fêted belle of some failu, before Lian took her to himself as wife. I
once paid her a visit when she happened to be busy boiling some
dal (yams), and lak (taro), for the midday meal, and she showed me
all over her kitchen by allowing me to thrust my head within the
doorway. It was merely a little outhouse of palm leaf close beside
their large house and only about six feet long, by three or four wide;
the floor was really neatly swept up, although the thatching of the
sides and rafters was well coated with soot. The fireplace was a
large iron bowl,—purchased of course, from Friedlander,—banked up
in a mound of sand; in this the fire was built, without any draught,
and over it an iron tripod, whereon was hung another iron bowl in
which the food was cooking. She had to sit by and watch the fire
constantly because, as she explained, it was exceedingly ill-omened
for a spark to fly out and lie burning on the floor, so while the fire
burned brightly, she must be close at hand to push back embers that
might fall, and to catch flying sparks.
The little house wherein the women cook their own food is called
pinfi, meaning “woman’s fire,” and is always for their exclusive use;
no man can eat food cooked in utensils that have been used in
preparing food for a woman, and I doubt if a man would use even
the same fire; I know that they will not light a cigarette from the
same ember or match that a woman uses; this is true even of
husband and wife. Once, at Friedlander’s instigation, to make a test,
I picked some areca nuts out of a woman’s betel basket as if to
examine them, and then in an absent-minded manner, dropped them
into the basket of a man who had seen me take them from the
woman; instantly he snatched them out of his basket and flung them
from him as if they had been live coals. I questioned Lian about this
custom; he admitted that nothing would induce him to eat food
prepared in a woman’s bowl or chew a betel nut that had been in a
woman’s basket. He assured me solemnly that it would inevitably
bring ill luck or sickness. When I visited Lian’s wife, all utensils used
in the preparation of her husband’s food were in a small vestibule or
antechamber near the door of the house, and there also was the
fireplace used exclusively for him. This taboo, as I suppose it may be
termed, does not, however, prevent a husband from eating
voraciously of the food which his poor wife, slaving over the fire (in
the tropics too!), has cooked for her high and mighty lord;—here is
just where the charming flexibility of the taboo is in evidence. The ill
omen attached to the flying sparks is devised to frighten poor
women into taking care lest they set the house on fire; and, by the
way, it is, indeed, almost miraculous that they do escape daily, nay
hourly conflagrations, even with this dread omen hanging over
them. In the first place, their skirts are composed of four or five
layers of dried leaves and strips of bast, and are so voluminous and
distended that they stand out all round the body, outrivalling the old-
fashioned hoopskirts; even when sitting down, the women are
surrounded by a mound of veritable tinder. In the second place, they
are for ever striking matches to light their cigarettes, nay, worse
even, they carry about with them for the sake of economy the
glowing husk of a coconut, and neither to matches nor husk do they
give the slightest heed, striking the one recklessly over their own
skirts or absent-mindedly resting the other against the skirts of their
neighbour. Yet in spite of this utter recklessness never did I see a
skirt catch fire, although I confidently awaited it every time they
assembled to hear the phonograph. When the female audiences had
dispersed after these exhibitions, Friedlander’s neatly swept little
compound was wont to look like a threshing-floor, so covered was it
with fragments of pandanus leaves, the relics of female attire. One
month at longest is the life of a woman’s dress; then the old skirt is
burned and a brand-new one plaited, with no tedious fittings at the
dressmaker’s, nor depressing bills to pay.
When dressed in their best for visits or feast days, the women
don skirts prettily decorated with wide strips of pandanus leaves
bleached for the purpose and stained a bright yellow with reng, and
about the waist-band are inserted brightly variegated leaves of
croton. The effect is, indeed, extremely pretty on the background of
their smooth, brown skin. The women do not, as a rule, adorn
themselves with necklaces or other ornaments; some, who do not
work very hard in the taro patches, wear bracelets of coconut shell
or tortoise-shell, and sometimes finger rings of the same material.
The long strips of hibiscus bast, stained black, which they all wear
knotted about their necks after they have come to maturity, seems
to take the place of all other finery. This cord, known as marafá,
must be always worn by a woman, young or old, when she is away
from her home; to be seen in the open air without it would be as
immodest and disgraceful as to appear without any clothes at all.
Within the dwelling house, however, it may be discarded with perfect
propriety.
Standards of beauty vary so widely among different races, from
the fat, round-faced beauties alleged to predominate in Turkish
harems, to the thin oval-faced belles of Japan, and to the long-
eared, black-toothed maidens of Borneo, that I was anxious to learn
what in masculine eyes of Uap constituted feminine beauty. One day,
after a phonograph recital for the men, fifteen or twenty from
different parts of the island lingered behind to watch the putting of
the tom-tom in its box; I then took the opportunity of asking them
who, in their opinion, was the prettiest girl of all they knew on the
island. They seemed to take a great interest in the discussion which
followed, and several girls were named and their charms discussed
and compared, but finally a unanimous voice was given to Migiul the
mispil of Magachagil, in the south of Uap. Their good taste may be
verified by turning to her photograph on the opposite page.
MIGIUL, A “MISPIL”
Migiul was a frequent visitor at Friedlander’s house, being an
intimate friend of his wife, and whenever she came to visit her
parents, who lived close by in Dulukan, she spent the greater part of
the day gossiping in Mrs. Friedlander’s cosy little home and learning
to speak the Marianne Island language. She was an exceptionally
bright girl, about seventeen or eighteen years old, with a sad,
plaintive expression and a soft, gentle voice,—a universal favourite
with the women, and the admiration of all the men. Nor was this all.
Her reputation as a ballad singer was widespread, hence she was
pushed forward on all occasions when a new song “record” was to
be made, and seemed modestly conscious of her proficiency; I
cannot honestly affirm, however, that I sympathised with her
admirers in their ecstasy over her high or low notes, which to my
dull, untrained ears too closely resembled, in all seriousness, the cry
of a cat in agony. Notwithstanding her peculiar position in that small
community, there was no trace of boldness in her demeanour; her
voice in speaking was always low, “an excellent thing in woman;”
she never obtruded herself, but retreated quickly to the background
when she had finished her song; in fact, she was the personification
of unstudied, innate femininity. This may be surely accepted,
whether among primitive people or amid the conventionalities of
modern society, as a high standard of refinement and an essential
element of a thorough lady. Poor little Migiul, according to the
exactest code of propriety is in her own eyes and in those of all her
Uap world, a thoroughly blameless, moral girl.
FATUMAK
Of all my friends among the men, old Fatumak, the mach-mach

or soothsayer, was the most faithful, the most intelligent, and,
consequently, to me, invaluable. In his youth he had fallen from a
coconut tree and so injured his spine, that he was permanently
deformed and had a dwarf-like figure with a pronounced distortion.
One evening, when he had been rehearsing to Friedlander and
myself some of the legends of Uap, I asked him how it was that he
knew so much; he said he had heard these stories from the old
people when he was a boy, and then he added, pointing to a long
row of notches on the handle of a little adze that he always carried:
—“Those marks, each one,—one moon; twenty-eight moons after I
fell, I lay in my house; no one to talk to; I think and think over
everything; I talk to myself; I remember these stories. Some I think
true; some I think foolish.” This had been his school,—two years of
solitary self-communion, and during this time he had pondered on
the problems of nature and the human mind, and solved them in his
simple primitive way, to his own satisfaction. He emerged a wise
man among his own people and endowed, as they believed, with
prophetic foresight. He was ready with an answer to every question
and made his living by interpreting omens and telling fortunes by
mysterious combinations of knots in Bei leaves.
His house, wherein he lived quite alone, never having taken to
himself a wife, was a veritable magpie’s nest, so full was it of odds
and ends of every description, piled in corners or suspended from
rafters, mostly discarded rubbish from the houses of Spanish or
German traders. It was enclosed by an open fence of bamboo, fairly
well built but naturally flimsy; in this fence there stood a gate which
at night and invariably in the absence of the owner, was kept closed
with a ponderous, rusty padlock, although a single, slight push
would have been enough to throw the whole fence flat; indeed, I
doubt that anyone hurrying along on a dark night and happening to
stumble into Fatumak’s fence, would have been aware of it, or
recognized any difference between it and other obstructive patches
of thick undergrowth; but it was a great comfort to the old fellow to
feel that “fast bind” ought to mean “fast find.” In the house his most
valued possessions, such as bits of brass wire, nails, beads, extra
blades for his adze, empty baking-powder boxes, the key-board of
an ancient accordion, and innumerable other articles calculated to
set a Uap’s “pugging tooth on edge,” were kept secure in a large tin
biscuit-box, whereof the top had been cut on three sides, and the
third side served as a hinge. He had contrived to punch holes
through this lid and the side of the box, and through them he had
inserted the hasp of another padlock almost as unwieldy as the one
on his front gate. I think that after locking it he had lost the key,—
the corners of the lid looked as if they had been bent upward to
extract what he wanted without disturbing the lock; in fact, it was
through these openings that I was able to examine the treasures of
this safe.
The old man,—I call him old, but I doubt that he was over fifty,
yet seemed older because of his deformed body and his quiet,
sedate, and thoughtful bearing,—had a pleasant, pensive face, with
somewhat negroid features, a broad flat nose and thick re-curving
lips; his hair, just beginning to show grey, was, however, wavy and
curly, with no trace of the wool of African negroes or of Papuans. He
smiled easily and took good humouredly the chaff which we
constantly poked at him for his thrifty devices, which closely verged
on miserliness, and, occasionally, for the prices he charged poor
unfortunates who invoked his skill in foretelling the future. He was
not able, on account of his misshapen back, to paddle his own
canoe, but he had constructed a raft of palm stems and bamboos,
which he called his “barco,” after the Spanish, and many a time I
saw him start off in the early morning to make his rounds of fortune-
telling, poling his “barco” up the coast in the shallow lagoon, and
return again in the evening with his decks almost awash with ripe
coconuts,—his fees for consultation collected on the spot. His
method of foretelling the future by means of bei leaves, he himself
believed in implicitly, and invariably became serious and reserved if
we alluded to it lightly. Many a time when he was squatting beside
us as we ate our lunch or dinner at a little table in the yard under
the palms, he would be called aside by an anxious client to interpret
some mysterious combinations of knots which had been tied at
random in strips of palm leaf. There are only a favoured few who
know the hidden significance of marriages of the kan or demons,
indicated by these knots, and this knowledge is kept sacredly secret
and never revealed until the father, at the approach of death,
discloses it to his son; thus it is handed down from generation to
generation.
On several occasions I noticed these consultations with Fatumak,
but had no idea of their meaning; I supposed that the tying of knots
in a strip of leaf was mere frivolity to fill up the time. One day,
however, a seeker for truth happened to sit close beside me and I
heard him earnestly talking to himself, or to the knots, as each one
was tied; when the four strips were finished, he adjusted them
carefully in his hand and showed them to Fatumak, who merely
glanced at them and murmured a reply. This was repeated several
times; then the man arose and went away contented. Of course, I
asked Fatumak what it all meant and he informed me that the man
wished to find out whether or not a friend of his, in the northern end
of Uap, who was very sick, was going to get well; the answers had
been favourable.
Whoever wishes to consult the omens in this manner provides
himself with eight or ten strips of green palm leaf, preferably the
narrow leaves of the coconut, and in the presence of the soothsayer,
proceeds to tie at random in each strip a series of single knots about
a half inch apart, not counting the knots as he ties them, but all the
time murmuring to himself the question which he wishes answered.
When four strips bear many knots thus tied, he takes the first strip
and, counting off the knots by fours, beginning at the broad end of
the leaf, catches the strip between his thumb and the base of the
index finger of the right hand in such a way that all the knots which
are over an even division by four, stick up above the back of the
hand. On the second, third and fourth strips he counts off the knots
in the same way, and catches them in turn between the index and
middle finger, the middle finger and ring finger, and the ring finger
and little finger, thus leaving the uneven number of knots sticking up
close to the knuckles. If there happens to be, on any strip, an even
number of fours, then four knots are left projecting. The seer then
reads the omen from the combinations of knots in the two pairs of
strips, composed of the thumb and index strip, and the index and
middle finger strip for one pair; and the middle and ring finger strip,
and the ring and little finger strip for the other. Each pair signifies a
different kan, or demon, and it is in accordance with the union of
these kan, that the omens are good or bad. As may be seen, there
are sixteen combinations of the number of knots possible in each
pair; consequently, there are sixteen valuable kan which assist at
this form of mach-mach. For instance, the thumb strip may have
four knots left over and the index strip have two, this is the sign that
the female kan, Vengek, is present for one; the middle finger strip
may have one and the ring finger strip have three knots left
projecting above the knuckles, this is the sign that Nebul, a male
kan, is associating with Vengek, and this indicates a certain answer
according to the drift of the question; which would be also affected
by the appearance of Vengek or Nebul in the first or second pair of
knots, the time of day, conditions of the weather and many other
influences, which Fatumak declared it would be useless to tell me, as
I could not possibly understand them all. I had made the grave error
of showing too rapid a comprehension of one of the mysteries of the
art when he was giving me the signs of the various kan, their sex,
and to whom they were married. This is the list, as he gave it to me,
before explaining anything about sex or marriage among the kan:
3 and 3—Thugalup
3 and 1—Languperran
1 and 4—Wunumerr
4 and 4—Sayuk
1 and 1—Thilibil
2 and 2—Nagaman
3 and 4—Trunuwil
1 and 2—Saupis
2 and 1—Navai
3 and 2—Fawgomon
1 and 3—Nebul
2 and 3—Musauk
2 and 4—Namen
4 and 2—Nafau
4 and 3—Vengek
4 and 1—Liverr
Of course, he had to give a practical demonstration of each

combination, he could not carry the numbers in his head; and when
he had finished the last one, Liverr, he vouchsafed the additional
information, while the knots were still between his fingers, that this
kan was a woman and was married to Wunumerr. This led me to ask
about the next to the last, Vengek; this also proved to be a woman,
married to Trunuwil; the next, Nafau (four-and-two) also a woman
and married to Namen (two-and-four),—this gave me the key,—the
descending numerical combinations were women and they were
married to their ascending reverse combinations.
Three-and-two would be a woman and married to two-and-three;
three-and-one the wife of one-and-three, etc., etc. Foolishly exultant
over my guessing these combinations, I forestalled Fatumak in
telling off the remaining combinations and named the husbands and
wives; he first eyed me with astonishment, and then became
unmistakably provoked and sullen. But my pride had its fall; I could
not determine the even combinations of four-and-four, three-and-
three, two-and-two, and one-and-one, so I had to appeal to his
superior knowledge again; whereupon he told me rather gruffly that
four-and-four was the chief Sayuk, and his lesser half was Nagaman
(two-and-two), and one-and-one was their son Thilibik, and three-
and-three was the bachelor youth Thugalup; and then he added that
I might be very clever and guess just as shrewdly about the Bei, but
that I would never know any more than what he had just told me,
and that no white man could ever understand it; we had our glasses
that looked beyond the sight of man into the distance, but the men
of Uap had Bei wherewith they could see things that had not yet
happened that were beyond the thoughts of man. With that he
gathered up his betel basket and solemnly walked away. I had lost
for ever a golden opportunity by my vanity,—but I incline to think it
was somewhat pardonable.
I did learn, however, a little more about the mach-mach, or
momok men, from the chief, Ronoboi, also a noted seer and dealer
in charms. Those who practice the art must be aged widowers, or
widows, from whose lives all thoughts of love for the opposite sex
have vanished; they may never eat food that has been prepared the
previous day; they must always be scrupulously careful that the
“quids” of betel nut, which they have finished chewing, are
destroyed either by fire or by throwing them into the sea, where no
profane hands can find them and thereby work charms
(consequently their betel basket is provided with an extra
compartment wherein the exhausted “quids” are deposited to await
their destruction); the parings of their nails and the hair cut from
their head must likewise be burned or thrown into the sea; if they
spit upon the ground, they must always wipe it out with the foot. All
this is done so that no counter spells may be worked against them.
The aim of the regulation in regard to warmed-over food is, we may
surmise, that no stale food shall be proffered as a compensation for
their fortune-telling or, possibly, it may be to avoid the risk of
poisons. Whoever takes counsel of the Bei, must himself make the
knots in the strips of palm leaf and hold them in his right hand. He
cannot force his fortune by pre-arranging the combinations of kan;
there are so many controlling circumstances, of which only the
soothsayer has knowledge, that it would be futile for any one to try
to deceive the Fates.
Fatumak’s Account
For Trade in Coconuts
—————
1. Bag of Flour 800
2. Tins of Beef 200
3. Tobacco 400
4. Matches 200
5. Rice 200
6. Two Iron Pots 200
7. A Lamp 200
8. Sardines 200
9. Sugar 100
10 Tea 100
11 An Axe 200
12 Knives 200
13 An iron Pot 100
14 Tobacco 300
Fatumak bore me no grudge for trying to pry too curiously into
his art; he came to visit us again the next day; all was forgiven and
he was as genial as ever. It happened that on this particular
occasion he had come to settle his accounts with Friedlander for
goods to be received in return for coconuts rendered. He was always
most accurate in his dealings and seemed to remember so exactly
the number of coconuts representing the value of each article which
he had been promised, that Friedlander fairly marvelled at his
memory, until one day he discovered that the old man had invented
a cipher for all the articles of trade and for the quantities of
coconuts. In this cipher he drew up his accounts with a lead pencil
on any old scrap of paper that he could find, and then proudly read
them off to Friedlander. The signs were always the same and were
perfectly intelligible to the writer, no matter how long a time had
elapsed since they had been written. On the opposite page is a
photograph of one of his accounts, which I preserved after it had
been settled; the various entries have been numbered and
translated. Some of them are merely pictographs, such as the axe,
and the iron pots, but others need explanation. I asked him the
meaning of the mark indicating a package of tea, and he explained
that when tea was given to him it was always in a little piece of
paper, and that the little round object represented the bundle, and
the crooked line at the top was the twist he gave to the ends of the
paper to keep it secure. The sign which he used for boxes of
sardines is puzzling; Fatumak did not explain it, but it looks as if the
wavy twist on the right side of the figure is meant to represent the
strip of tin which is twisted off with a key when these cans are
opened; whence he got the sign also for a hundred coconuts he
could not explain, but it was always the same and perfectly legible to
him.
The people of Uap use a decimal system having separate words
for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, but sixty is six-tens, seventy, seven-
tens, etc.; and again, uncompounded words for one hundred and
one thousand. This may seem trivial to note, but I found a decimal
system among the Miri Nagas of Upper Assam, in India; they
counted, however, only to ten, and then repeated; they had no
terms for eleven, twelve, thirteen, etc., nor for twenty. When they
reached ten, a stick or pebble was placed beside them on the
ground as a record of the tens.
Fatumak’s cipher or system of sign writing elevates him at once
head and shoulders above the most advanced and intelligent of his
fellow-countrymen, who, for the greater part, have barely emerged
from the stone age; in fact, adzes of sharpened shell are still to be
found in almost all the houses of the old families, and the old men
can distinctly remember these primitive implements in daily use by
their parents and grand-parents.
In sooth Fatumak was a most lovable old character,
uncomplaining under the discomforts of his deformity, always ready
to impart and anxious to receive information, and never obtrusive or
presuming, as is so often the failing of natives of these islands when
they find that a stranger is interested in them.
CHAPTER IX
RELIGION
O
ne evening when old Fatumak appeared to be in a philosophical
mood and Friedlander was at hand as a kind interpreter, a
favourable opportunity seemed present to ask the reader of the
future to turn back the pages of his memory and tell what he knew
of the dim and misty past,—when and how and by whom this fair
little tropical world was created. After the question was put to him,
he sat silent for a while, with his eyes cast down fixedly on a fresh
bolus of betel nut, for the various condiments whereof he was
rummaging in his betel basket on the floor beside him. When the
mixture was duly spread out upon the green leaf of wild pepper, to
add the last supreme touch, he took up his bamboo box of
powdered lime, holding it between his thumb and middle finger and,
tapping it meditatively with his forefinger, shook out a sprinkling of
lime through the small hole in the bottom; then he lovingly folded
the leaf over its contents, and throwing his head back and rolling up
his eyes, crammed the bolus far back in his cheek, then in a
somewhat muffled voice at length replied, “There are many strange
stories about those times, but I think they are all untrue, yet what I
am now about to tell you I know is just what really happened.” He
leaned back against the door post and ruminated quietly, while
Friedlander explained to me what had just been said, and then
Fatumak resumed, with the following story, which I give without the
frequent interruptions: “Long, long ago when there was nothing but
sea and sky, and no land, there was a large piece of driftwood like
the trunk of a coconut palm floating on the waves; on the under side
of it was a great barnacle, and out of this came the first woman, and
she lived in the water and never went up on top of the huge log.
Very soon she had a daughter, whom she warned that on no account
was she to go up on top of the log. The daughter’s curiosity was,
however, too much for her and when it was low tide and the bottom
of the sea came up to meet the log, she crept up on top, and a gal
tree [hibiscus] grew down from the sky and stuck fast to the log and
held it in one place. When she got up into the air and daylight, she
found that the driftwood was inhabited by all sorts of devils (kan)
that hover about on the surface of the sea, and they were all
clothed, but she was not. As soon as the clothed devils of the sea
caught sight of her and saw that she was not like themselves and
was naked, they killed her and preserved her body in salt.
“Very soon the mother missed her daughter and came up to look
for her and found only her dead body preserved in salt. Then
Yalafath, the ruler of Falraman (Heaven), was sorry for her and
commanded the kan who had killed her to work a charm that would
bring her to life again. When this was accomplished, Yalafath gave to
the mother and daughter packages of sand and yams and told them
to go over the sea and scatter the sand and plant the yams, but to
return to the driftwood and the gal tree in seven days without fail.
So they set out and did as they were told, but enjoyed it so much
that they completely forgot when the seven days were up. Yalafath
was very, very angry and sent a rat after them, telling him to eat up
all the yam plants. When the mother and daughter saw their plants
destroyed, they came to their senses and remembered the promise,
so they hurried back to ask pardon of Yalafath. He forgave them and
sent them a cat to kill the rat. Then he commanded the daughter to
marry the kan who had first killed her and brought her to life again,
and he gave them a large canoe with a sail, and they travelled
everywhere and found that where the sand had been scattered in
piles there were the high lands and mountains, where white people
lived and they had everything they wanted. Where the sand had
been scattered broadcast were the low coral islands. The dark
people are the children of that kan and the daughter of the barnacle
woman, but white people are children of kans for they go
everywhere in the big ships that Yalafath has given them, and they
take everything, even coconuts and sand, from the dark people.”
This narrative does not seem to me to bear the stamp of
antiquity. In the first place, cats are of comparatively recent
introduction on the island, probably from some of the whaling
vessels which frequently traded there fifteen or twenty years ago. In
the second place, the reference to the white man taking away the
coconuts and even the sand from the dark people is an allusion to a
copra-trader who,—so Friedlander told me,—a few years ago cast
anchor in the Tomil harbour, and, after discharging his cargo, found
that there was not enough dried copra to give him proper ballast, so
he had to fill one of his holds with sand-ballast; this the natives
could not understand and thought that even the very soil of their
island was valuable to the strange white people. I have,
nevertheless, given the story as it was told, although it may be
merely the offspring of Fatumak’s imagination and tinged with his
belief in the ruling of man’s actions by a superior being and a
company of subordinate demons.
There are no set forms of religious observance in Uap, but they
believe that there is in the sky overhead an abode of departed
spirits; it is supposed to be a large house, known as Falraman, and
over it presides Yalafath, the creator of the world, who is a kind but
rather unsympathetic god; nevertheless, if, in distress, prayers are
offered to him, he intervenes and overrules the horde of evil
demons. Falraman is precisely like any large house in Uap, and the
spirits of men and women who go there assume the same bodily
shape that they had in this life, but it is only the “thinking-part,” or
tafenai, that really goes. The tafenai of children also go to Falraman,
but whether or not they grow old is not known to mortals. The
tafenai of stillborn children, however, never get into Falraman; all
they know is how to cry; therefore they stay in the ground where
they have been buried and cry incessantly for their mothers. After a
tafenai has been long enough in Falraman to have the mortal
“heaviness” and earthly odour wear off, it goes back to its former
dwelling place in Uap and it is then known as an athegith, but is
invisible to mortal eyes. If a tafenai find that it had not been
befittingly honoured at burial, it brings sickness to the household
and will not desist until its dead body has been laid away with due
lamentations and funeral songs, and the mach-mach man has
pronounced a charm exhorting it to desist. It is the tafenai trying to
escape out of the body that makes a person ill, and all the charms
said over sick people are exhortations to the tafenai to remain; when
a man is delirious, his tafenai has left his body and it may or may
not be enticed to return.
One day, an unfortunate, feeble-minded epileptic, of decidedly
negroid type, with thick lips and wild-staring, restless eyes, came
with others of the people to Friedlander’s house to hear a
phonograph recital; the excitement evidently brought on an attack,
and he suddenly gave the symptomatic wild shriek of epileptics and
fell to the ground with violent contortions. The bystanders made not
the least attempt to help him, but stood about shouting with
laughter at his writhings. The fit soon passed off, and he was again
on his feet, walking about with a dazed air, and a following of
heartless, jeering little boys. I asked Fatumak if he knew what was
the matter with the poor fellow, and, in a tone implying that it was a
childish question, he answered, “Oh, yes, he is just a foolish sort of
a fellow who has a wandering tafenai which floats around with the
wind, and when it strikes him he falls to the ground and struggles
with it.”
When a man sleeps, his tafenai escapes and wanders about
playing all manner of queer pranks; in the morning when he awakes,
it is the tafenai creeping back into his body through the nostrils that
rouses him, wherefore a man so often wakes up sneezing or
coughing. “A wise man has his tafenai in his head; a fool has it in his
belly,” said Fatumak.
Yalafath, who is the supreme deity and has the general
supervision of mankind, has attributes benignant indeed, but of a
lukewarm character, negative rather than positive; herein, however,
in this benignity, feeble though it be, he is unparalleled in the
theology of the Borneans or of the Naga Hill tribes of Upper India,
where all deities are malevolent. Of the numerous lesser deities,
there is Luk, the god of the tsuru, or dance; Nagadamang is bold
and aids the athegiths in their vengeance; Marapou, who sends the
wind and rain and causes storms at sea; Begbalel, who looks after
the taro fields and makes or mars the crops; Kanepai is always
present at dances to make men so giddy that they must have water
poured on their heads before they recover and can go on with the
dance, but Bak is the real god of the Tsuru; Nagadamang is the god
of war, and when he is heard growling, war is sure to follow; if he
knocks at a house-post, sickness results. Muibab is also a god of
war; the frigate-bird, sacred to him, bears his name. Boradaileng
punishes the tafenai of bad men by thrusting them into a pit of fire.
To be bad enough to deserve this punishment, a man must have
been guilty of cutting down trees or coconut palms on another man’s
land. Of course, the sea, sky, and earth teem with invisible demons
who are accountable for every natural phenomenon or misfortune.
Fire came to the people of Uap through the god Derra
(lightning), who came down and struck a large hibiscus tree at
Ugutam, a slave village at the northern end of the island. A woman,
whose name is unrecorded, begged the god for the fire; he gave her
some and showed her how to bake an earthen pot. When the fire
died out, he taught her how to obtain more by means of the fire-
drill, and told her that fire in a new house must always be started in
this manner, and for it only the wood of the hibiscus tree should be
used, moreover this wood must be cut with shell knives or shell
axes, neither iron nor steel must touch it.
Lusarer taught them, in days gone by, how to make the sacred
mats or umbul, of which I have already spoken; they are never
used, nor even unwrapped, but pass from father to son as sacred
heirlooms hanging from the rafters to attest the wealth and
respectability of the family.
I could not discover that sacrifices or offerings were ever made
to the gods, but in the enclosures about the houses I frequently
noticed a palm-leaf basket hanging to one of the trees or bushes in
front of the house; in these baskets there were invariably pieces of
coconut that appeared to have been scorched or partly roasted, also
some broken egg-shells and some dried leaves, probably of the wild
pepper. Repeated questioning failed to bring out an explanation of
these baskets, further than that they were hung out merely in sport;
often the house-owners professed absolute ignorance of their
existence, and said it was no doubt some childish game. They were,
however, so universal that I am convinced they bore a meaning that
the people did not wish to disclose.
While uttering incantations to cure sickness or to drive away the
athegiths, the wizard waves a wand of palm-leaves, with which from
time to time he touches the sick person. When wind and waves are
to be lulled at sea, he uses as a talisman the sharp, barbed spine
from the tail of the stingray; standing in the bow of the canoe he
flourishes this dagger-like talisman above his head as he shouts out
the mystic words, stabbing at the invisible god who has brought on
the bad weather, “shooing” him off, as if he were a chicken or a
trespassing dog. This incantation is known as momok nu flaifang.
Another occasion on which the services of the mach-mach are
invoked, is the naming of a child, which takes place ten days after its
birth, when for the first time it is brought to its father’s house from
the tapal, or small secluded house in the “bush,” whereto
prospective mothers retire on the first symptoms of labour. On the
ninth day after birth, a carrying basket is made for it, and the
mother carries it to a small house adjoining the family house; here
the mother and child must remain over night. On the following day
the mach-mach receives it in its father’s house, and, touching it on
the head with leaves from the heart of a coconut palm, he exhorts
Yalafath to protect the child and see that it is never hungry and
never sick, and, by waving the leaves of the life-giving coconut over
it, chases away evil demons of misfortune. The chosen name,
usually that of some near relative, either living or dead, is then given
to the child, which up to this time has been called sugau, if a boy, or
ligau, if a girl. The ceremony of naming a child is known as momok
nu sumpau.
For all these services the mach-mach, who is apparently in no
way regarded as a priest, but merely as a wise man and an exorcist,
is paid either in shell money, or coconuts, and baskets of yams or
taro.
It is in this fashion that good old Fatumak makes his comfortable
living and is enabled to trade so lavishly with Friedlander for
products from the white man’s country where the barnacle woman
and her daughter deposited the sand in heaps.
THE MODE OF CARRYING BABIES; THE SOLE OF THE

BABY’S FOOT MAY BE SEEN AT THE END OF THE
HAMPER
CHAPTER X
PERCEPTION OF COLOUR
I
t must be indeed a strange world to live in where black, blue, and
green are identical in colour; yet apparently it is in such a world
that the men of Uap live. As far as the colour of their heads and
hands is concerned, they might as well be Jumblees, whose heads,
according to Edward Lear “were green and whose hands were blue;”
to them such freaks would not be amiss; for all I could make out,
the verdant coconut frond, the azure sky, and their own dark bodies
are all of one colour. To them blue and green are only lighter shades
of black; the word rungidu is applied to all three.
One day, to test their perception of colours, I painted squares in
my note-book of every colour in my paint box; on asking many men
the names of the colours, I learned from the answers of all, that
only black, red, yellow, orange, and white had distinctive names; all
the shades of blue and green were ignored; or, occasionally, they
would say a deep blue was the colour of the deep sea, and light
green was the colour of young coconut leaves, but in the abstract
these colours were both rungidu. The carmine was at once picked
out as rau; emerald green, ultramarine blue, and black were all
rungidu, chrome yellow was reng-reng, orange was mogotrul, and
white (the blank paper) was vetch-vetch; the white foam of the
breakers was known as uth.
They were never at loss in naming or distinguishing the colour,
and gave such qualifying adjectives as “mouldy” colour; “dirty”
colour; “close to the colour of blood;” the strangest and most poetic
was an adjective applied to rose madder, which one man said was a
“lazy” colour. When asked to explain, he replied: “When a man feels
sleepy and lazy and rubs his eyes, he sees this colour.”
Among women, however, I found that some did recognize blue
and green as separate colours, and gave distinctive names to them.
CHAPTER XI
TATTOOING
A
desire to add to Nature’s scanty endowments of beauty, seems
to be one of our earliest endeavours, after we have shed our fur
and abandoned the arboreal abodes of our four-handed and
conservative brothers. Whether, or not, we have in every instance,
succeeded in improving on Nature’s unadorned charms must remain
pretty much a matter of taste.
The fashion of elaborate tattooing, which seems to have been
prevalent among the men of the past generation in Uap, is at
present decidedly on the wane. There are still some few middle-aged
men who proudly display a complete suit of tattooing, but I am
afraid that they are looked upon by the dandies of the day
somewhat in the same light as the wearer of a frilled shirt-front and
lace cuffs would be regarded by the exquisites of our own day,—just
a tinge of respect for old age but a devout thankfulness that such
fashions are not the demand of this enlightened and superior era.
Fifteen or twenty years ago the tattooing on the men of Uap
covered the greater part of their bodies from the nape of the neck to
the calves of the legs. To be beautiful and in fashion one had indeed
to suffer, especially as no such delicate instruments as steel needles
could be employed to convey the pigment beneath the skin; the
bone of a sea fowl or of a fish is to the present day the only material
that may be used to puncture the skin, and it takes a quite
vigourous blow to drive these dull points through a skin that has
been hardened and thickened by constant exposure to sun and to
salt water.
THE TATTOOING OF THE MEN OF FASHION. THIS IS NOT
UNIVERSAL AMONG THE MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY.
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Hot Matter from High-Power

ISSN 1868-4513 ISSN 1868-4521 (electronic)

Zusammenhänge müssen nicht wirklich bestehen,

Robert Menasse in Die Hauptstadt

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properties to heat matter to extreme temperatures and to impress pronounced

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on the quantization of the radiation ﬁeld, on the moon as a Schrödinger problem

Darmstadt, Germany Peter Mulser

1 Hot Matter from High-Power Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2.1.6 The Ponderomotive Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

4.2 LTE: The Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

6 Unstable Fluids and Plasmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

7.3 Collisionless Absorption from Overdense Plasma Surfaces . . . . . 588

9 Applications of High Power Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677

1.1 Laser and Ion Beam Generated Hot Matter

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 1

1.1.1 High Power Lasers

1.1.2 Wavelengths of Common High Power Lasers

1.1.3 The Bird of the Laser Plasma

1.1.3.1 Modelling of the Laser Field

E(x, t) = Êei(kx−ωt) . (1.1)

It is a classical, unquantized field obeying Maxwell’s equations. The intensity I is

Ê [Vcm−1 ] = 27.5 × (I [Wcm−2 ]) 2 .

1.1.3.2 Laser Induced Breakdown in Matter

Fig. 1.1 Particle-in-cell

1.1.4 Multiphoton and Field Ionization

Mysterious First Free Electron

The essence of multiphoton ionization can be made clear in classical terms.

in a wide range of intensities. It can be shown by several independent arguments

Fig. 1.2 Experimental ion

1.1.4.1 Field Ionization

posed in x direction it assumes along r = x

Close to Um , U (x) is well approximated by a parabola with its vertex at xm . A

where d is the interionic distance. Under the condition of τ I π/ω, τ I can be

Initial Kinetic Temperature

1.2 Basic Properties of the Laser Plasma

1.2.1 Collisional Absorption and Plasma Heating

Multiphoton and field ionization lead to a rapidly growing electron population in

self-trapping is determined by the Debye length λ D ,

to be smaller than the minimum diameter d of the ion cloud. Once λ D /d 1 is

The Debye length tells over what distance an equilibrium is established

Substitution of this expression for E in the energy relation above yields λ D ,

Uncorrelated thermal motion necessarily induces fluctuations in n e , however

In a thermal plasma an electron temperature of 1 MeV is needed to produce such a

1.2.1.1 Collisional Absorption and the Drude Model

Of all my friends among the men, old Fatumak, the mach-mach