The effects of ion motion on the generation of short-cycle relativistic laser pulses during radiation pressure acceleration are investigated by analytical modeling and particle-in-cell simulations. Studies show that the rear part of the transmitted pulse modulated by ion motion is sharper compared with the case of the electron shutter only. In this study, the ions further modulate the short-cycle pulses transmitted. A 3.9 fs laser pulse with an intensity of 1.33×1021W cm-2is generated by properly controlling the motions of the electron and ion in the simulations. The short-cycle laser pulse source proposed can be applied in the generation of single attosecond pulses and electron acceleration in a small bubble regime.
The effect of inner-surface roughness of conical targets on the generation of fast electrons in the laser-cone interaction is investigated using particle-in-cell simulation. It is found that the surface roughness can reduce the fast-electron number （in the energy range E 〉 1 MeV） and energy, as compared to that from a cone with smooth inner wall. A scaling law for the laser reflectivity based on the vacuum-heating model is derived. Both theory and simulation indicate that laser reflection increases with the height-to-width ratio of the periodic inner surface structure and approaches that of a smooth cone as this ratio becomes zero.
As an important QED effect to detect the vacuum polarization, birefringence in the presence of a strong electric and magnetic field, E0⊥ B0, E0≤ c B0, is considered. The directional dependence of birefringence is obtained. In two special cases： E0= 0 and E0= c B0, our results are consistent with the previous ones. The refractive index of the probe wave propagating in the -E0× B0 direction decreases with E0/c B0, while that in the-E0× B0 direction increases with E0/c B0.The physics of the direction dependence of birefringence maybe the E0× B0 drift velocity of the virtual electrons and positrons.
Contrary to the superposition principle, it is well known that photorefraction exists in the vacuum with the presence of a strong static field, a laser field, or a rotational magnetic field. Different from the classical optical crystals, the refractive index also depends on the phase of the strong electromagnetic field. We obtain the phase and direction dependence of the refractive index of a probe wave incident in the strong field of a circular-polarized plane wave by solving the Maxwell equations corrected by the effective Lagrangian. It may provide a valuable theoretical basis to calculate the polarization evolution of waves in the strong electromagnetic circumstances of pulsar or neutron stars.
