Abstract
An overdense plasma layer irradiated by intense light can exhibit dramatic nonlinear-optical effects due to a relativistic mass-effect of free electrons: highly-multiple hysteresises of reflection and transition, and emergence of immobile waves of large amplitude. Those are trapped quasi-soliton spikes sustained by a weak pumping having a tiny fraction of their peak intensity once they have been excited first by higher power pumping. The phenomenon persists even in the layers with "soft", wash-out boundaries, as well as in a semi-infinite plasma with low absorption.
Highlights
Diverse phenomena such as light reflection at a dielectric interface, under-barrier scattering of an electron in quantum mechanics, and wave propagation in waveguides, plasma, free-electron gas, and in band-gap materials, including Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), exhibit a common critical behavior: a dramatic transition at a crossover from a traveling wave in an underlying medium to a non-propagating, evanescent wave that carry no energy
It can be of great significance to nonlinear optics: a nonlinear refractive index can cause a phasetransition-like effect, since a small light-induced change may translate into a switch from full reflection to full transmission, resulting in a huge hysteresis
While the fact that smooth-distribution plasma layers can still produce multi-hysteresises and resonances is of great significance for the physics of such systems, it may be even more important for experimental observation of the phenomenon in ”real life” systems, such as plasma jets in the lab, or the pancake-like slabs of plasma ejected from a star
Summary
Diverse phenomena such as light reflection at a dielectric interface, under-barrier scattering of an electron in quantum mechanics, and wave propagation in waveguides, plasma, free-electron gas, and in band-gap materials, including Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), exhibit a common critical behavior: a dramatic transition at a crossover from a traveling wave in an underlying medium to a non-propagating, evanescent wave that carry no energy. A recent work [26] studied steady-state solutions in a 1D plasma layer with sharp boundaries to great degree similar to one of the configurations considered by us here, and stated the existence of multi-valued solutions that are due to a ”self-organized” resonances; yet, no explicit hysteresises, nor their characteristics, total number, etc., transpired from that study. It was pointed out in [26] The energy accumulated in QS’s and excited free electrons, can be released if plasma density reduces, as it may happen, e. g. in an astrophysical environment
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