Inverse bremsstrahlung heating (IBH) is studied by using scattering theory for the interaction of intense lasers with matter using soft-core potentials. This involves three different kinds of interactions: (i) the interaction of the electrons with the external laser field, (ii) the electron-ion interaction, and (iii) the electron-electron interaction. In the interaction of rare-gas clusters with ultrashort laser pulses, nano-plasmas with high densities are created. A new scaling for the differential cross-section and the rate of energy absorption via IBH is derived which depends on the external laser field as well as electric field due to the other particles. When the particles are treated as charge distributions, the electric fields due to the other particles depend on a parameter of the non-Coulombic soft-core field, the potential depth, often used to avoid the Coulomb singularity. Thus, the rate of IBH also depends on the potential depth. Calculations are performed for electrons in a range of wavelength regimes from the vacuum ultraviolet to the mid-infrared. The rate of energy absorption via IBH is found to increase rapidly with increases in the potential depth and then quickly becomes mostly saturated at the Coulomb value for greater depths. The rate of energy absorption via IBH is found to be non-linear with laser intensities. The differential cross-section as well as the rate of energy absorption of IBH is found to increase with increases in laser wavelength. Finally, lower laser intensities saturate more slowly, requiring a larger potential depth to saturate.

During the inaugural experiment at FLASH, the first vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) free-electron laser facility, Wabnitz et al. [Nature 420, 482 (2002)] irradiated xenon clusters and sparked a concerted theoretical and experimental effort to understand how dense, finite plasmas behave under intense irradiation. In this work, we revisit this experiment with a model that is based only on well-established atomic processes. We find that the experimental results can be explained by hybrid quantum-classical molecular-dynamics simulations if collisional excitation, recombination, and a sufficiently deep soft-core potential is used. Our recent theoretical model for inverse bremsstrahlung heating (IBH) is used to show that the measured energy absorbed by the cluster in the experiment is well predicted by our model.

An intense, short laser pulse incident on rare-gas clusters can produce nano-plasmas containing energetic electrons. As these electrons undergo scattering, from both phonons and ions, they emit bremsstrahlung radiation. Here, we compare a theory of bremsstrahlung emission appropriate for the interaction of intense lasers with matter using soft-core potentials and Coulombic potentials. A new scaling for the radiation cross-section and the radiated power via bremsstrahlung is derived for a soft-core potential (which depends on the potential depth) and compared with the Coulomb potential. Calculations using the new scaling are performed for electrons in vacuum ultraviolet, infrared and mid-infrared laser pulses. The radiation cross-section and the radiation power via bremsstrahlung are found to increase rapidly with increases in the potential depth of up to around 200 eV and then become mostly saturated for larger depths while remaining constant for the Coulomb potential. In both cases, the radiation cross-section and the radiation power of bremsstrahlung decrease with increases in the laser wavelength. The ratio of the scattering amplitude for the soft-core potential and that for the Coulombic potential decreases exponentially with an increase in momentum transfer. The bremsstrahlung emission by electrons in plasmas may provide a broadband light source for diagnostics.

An experiment is proposed to distinguish between different laser-cluster atomistic models and their predictions. The induced transparency of rare-gas clusters, post-interaction with an extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pump-pulse, is predicted by using an atomistic hybrid quantum-classical molecular dynamics model. We find there is an intensity range for which an XUV probe-pulse has no lasting effect on the average charge state of a cluster after being saturated by an XUV pump-pulse: the cluster is transparent to the probe-pulse. Multiple complete experimental signals are calculated which include the effect of the pulse's spatial distribution as well as the cluster size distribution. The calculated experimental signals and trends are also accomplished with the addition of an ionization potential lowering model that results in effectively removing the induced transparency effect. Thus, the proposed experiment is expected to either find the new phenomenon of induced transparency in clusters or give strong evidence for the existence of the enhanced ionization phenomenon, ionization potential lowering, in nanoplasmas.

The disintegration of non-icosahedral rare-gas clusters in ultra-intense extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses is studied. The clusters quickly form a nanoplasma and evolve only according to the nanoplasma's dynamics which are determined predominately by the cluster's initial shape. It is found that the cluster's disintegration follows a simple model well predicted using only the initial structure. The main finding is that the ions disintegrate tangentially from the surface of the cluster's overall shape. In ellipsoidal clusters, the work done on the ions near the semi-minor axis by the other particles (ions and electrons) is larger than the work done on the ions near the semi-major axis. This leads to an inversion of the ellipsoidal axes due to the different axes expanding at different rates.