Dense and Relativistic Plasmas Produced by Compact High‐Intensity Lasers

Abstract

High-intensity lasers interacting with plasmas are used to study processes in the laboratory that would otherwise only occur in astrophysics. These include relativistic plasmas, electron acceleration in ultrahigh field-gradient wake fields, pressure ionization and continuum lowering in strongly coupled plasmas, and X-ray line emission via Raman scattering.