Plasma Density Fluctuations and the Physics of Short-pulse Laser-produced Plasmas

Abstract

Laser-produced plasmas are studied for their relevance to laser fusion research, as bright pulsed sources of X-rays and fast particles, as well as for the fundamental plasma physics processes they reveal. The programme on laser-plasma-interaction physics at the Australian National University has gained prominence for elucidating the physics of plasmas generated using short laser pulses at very high intensity where complex nonlinear processes dominate behaviour. This review will discuss some of the results from that programme and in particular relate many of the observed phenomena to the existence of density fluctuations in the plasma.