Light-to-Plasma Momentum Transfer

The momentum of light in a plasma and the transfer from to is calculated for uniform plane incident into plasma. At low irradiance, Minkowski Abraham expressions photon are shown be equivalent. We evaluate relativistic electron motion at high irradiance show that most transferred electrons associated with parallel propagation an corresponding reduced vector potential ao≈3.7 (reduced Iλ2≈2×1019 W cm−2 μm2). Our results ensure maximum photons k-direction fixed laser pulse energy, focusing should adjusted achieve ao≈3.7, even if tighter focusing, thus higher ao values, possible.