........ published in NEWSLETTER # 48
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........ published in NEWSLETTER # 48
COHERENCE PHENOMENA ON ATOMS AND MOLECULES IN LASER FIELDS
by Professor A.D. Bandrauk, University, Sheerbrooke (Canada) and Professor S.C. Wallace, University, Toronto (Canada)
This ASI volume is essentially a report on the continuation and evolution of the field more generally entitled `Atomic and Molecular Processes with Short Intense Laser Pulses', which was in fact the title of a previous NATO ASI, published in 1987 (NATO ASI SERIES B171) with A.D. Bandrauk as editor. Since then, the subject has evolved towards a study and an understanding of the basic phenomena of molecular interactions in intense laser fields and the effect of superintense laser fields on atoms. Thus the experience developed over the years in multiphoton atomic processes has become the main source of our understanding of similar processes in molecules.
As examples of this evolution, the volume under review (NATO ASI SERIES B287) presents reports of ATI (Above Threshold Ionization) in molecules as well as a new nonlinear molecular phenomenon, ATD (Above Threshold Dissociation). Laser-induced avoided crossings and the resulting suppression of photodissociation at high lager intensities (I - 10exp13 W/cm2) was also a center of focus for the high intensity laser community. This phenomenon finds its analog in the atomic case where suppression of ionization of atoms in super intense fields was discussed recently at the NATO Advances Workshop dedicated solely to the latter (`SILAP' = Super-Intense Laser to be published in the NATO ASI SERIES by PLENUM Publishing Corporation, New York (U.S.A.).
The clear message from the Proceedings is that advancing laser technology is pushing forward the frontier of nonlinear photochemistry and photophysics, so that new nonlinear phenomena such as ATI, ATD, short- wavelength and X-Ray production, and finally control of atomic and molecular multiphoton processes are being pursued in major research centers within NATO countries, more specifically in Canada, France, Germany and the USA. We believe that another workshop on the same subject in about four years time would be most appropriate in view of the novelty of the area and the great promise it holds for nonlinear photochemistry, photophysics and finally X- Ray laser development.
Reference books: B171, B287