Nuclear Excitation by a Zeptosecond Multi-MeV Laser Pulse

A zeptosecond multi-MeV laser pulse may either excite a ''plasma'' of strongly interacting nucleons or a collective mode. We derive the conditions on laser energy and photon number such that either of these scenarios is realized. We use the nuclear giant dipole resonance as a representative example, and a random-matrix description of the fine-structure states and perturbation theory as tools.