Hopa H. Nonlinear Plasma Dynamics at Laser Irradiation

Springer, 1979. — 249 p.
Lecture notes, to which the author was invited by the publisher Springer, Heidelberg, are a very appropriate medium to distribute a synopsis of such a very fast moving field as the physical concepts of laser plasma interaction. The present effort of about 400 Mill Dollars spent per year
in this field is stimulated by the goal of finding one possible way to solve the most challenging task of this century: low cost, safe, inexhaustive, and highly concentrated energy production by fusion using lasers. The laser technology is a spln-off of electronics engineering and plasma physics is a field of mechanical engineering of fluids. Compared with the presently dominating fields of physics, elementary particle physics and solid state physics, laser produced plasmas is considered not without restrictions as a field of physics, though Einsteln's derivation of the laser prlnlclple in 1916 was one of the mile stones in physics of our century in the rank of Dirac's discovery or antimatter. Both results were not the intention of research and even could not be dreamed of before their theoretical discovery and ingenious interpretation.
The physics behind laser plasma dynamics does not need a development of new basic concepts. The existing hydrodynamics, Maxwell-Lorentz electrodynamic theory, quantum mechanics, and relativity is - at least at present - sufficient to describe the phenomena. Based on these theories, however, several new formulations were necessary for the high intensity laser plasma interaction. There was the need to extend
the optical constants to a nonlinear dependence on the laser intensity and to include relativistic effects if the oscillation energy of the electrons in the laser field exceeded mc2. These questions provided an access for rediscussi~g the black body radiation, for a physical argument to derive the fine structure constant, and to solve the Abraham-Minkowskl dilemma - to mention some spin-offs in basic physics.