Photonuclear reactions induced by intense short laser pulses

A measurement of the decay in time of nuclei excited by an intense short laser pulse of energy E0 yields the Fourier transform of the autocorrelation function of the associated scattering matrix. We determine the optimal length (in time) of the pulse and evaluate the time-decay function using random-matrix theory. That function is shown to contain information not otherwise available. We approximate that function in a manner that is useful for the analysis of data. For E0 below the threshold energy En of the first neutron channel, the time-decay function is exponential in time t while it is the product of an exponential and a power in t for E0>En. The comparison of the measured decay functions in both energy domains yields an unambiguous and novel test of random-matrix theory in nuclei.