Theoretical study of the interaction between intense laser pulses and rare gas clusters

The irradiation of nanometer-scale rare gas clusters by a short (a few hundreds of femtosecond) and intense (I > 1015 W/cm2) laser pulse yields multi-keV short X-ray bursts. We employ an hydrodynamic model, the so-called 'nano-plasma model', to understand the mechanisms that tailor the interaction. In this model, the cluster is treated as a dielectric sphere embedded in the quasi-static laser field leading to the formation of a plasma of nano-metric size. We have shown that this model cannot reproduce the experimental results such as the high ionization states and associated X-ray spectra. We have thus included in the model two additional mechanisms that significantly improve the ionization dynamics. First, we have introduced high order ionization processes involving intermediate excited states Xq+ + e- → Xq+* + e- →... → Xq+1+ + 2 e-. We have used a model potential approach to describe the electronic structure of the cluster's ions (and atoms), and we have computed the total excitation and ionization cross-sections in the distorted-wave Born approximation. Secondly we have studied the influence of screening phenomena induced by the electronic density on the interaction dynamics. By using a sophisticated potential, we have shown that screening effects enhance ionization and lower excitation cross sections with respect to the unscreened data. The improved nano-plasma model allows us to reproduce the populations of highly charged states experimentally observed, and the variation of argon Heα emission with respect to the various experimental parameters (cluster size, laser pulse duration, intensity and wavelength). We have further computed time- and energy-resolved X-ray spectra which emphasize ultra-short emission duration (less than 100 fs), and therefore indicate that cluster-based X-ray sources are adequate to ultrafast X-ray science applications. (author)