Relativistic laser plasma interaction: EM solitons and post-solitons

Laser plasma interaction has been a fascinating field of study for decades and with the invent of super-intense lasers, several new phenomena are being revealed. Electromagnetic solitons and Post-solitons are among them which are created in the plasma in the wake of a high-intensity ultrashort laser pulse. Basically they are formed by radiation trapping in the plasma which creates a cavity which on the ion time scale evolves into post-solitons. These post-solitons are bubble or density depleted regions and have been observed to depend upon laser polarization. In the present paper, the evolution of EM solitons and post-solitons have been evaluated for various laser specifications such as polarization, pulse profile, pulse duration with a range of plasma densities. The ion acceleration during the post-soliton evolution has been studied. The effect of negative ions in the plasma during the formation of EM solitons and its evolution has been studied. Both theoretical and Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulation results have been presented. (author)