Progress in Ultrafast Intense Laser Science XIV

Real-time observation of quantum wavepackets of molecules with a-few-pulse attosecond pulse train.-Laser-induced alignment dynamics beyond the rigid-rotor approximation.-  Light-induced electron dynamics in semiconductor from femtosecond to attosecond regime.- Elucidating the origins of multimode vibrational coherences induced by intense laser fields.- Warm dense matter produced by high-intensity short-pulsed lasers.- Femtosecond laser filamentation in a combustion flame.- Harmonic generation in air by intense femtosecond pulses.- Mechanisms of the high-order harmonic generation from solids.- Coherent control of symmetry breaking and restoration with attosecond precision: From atoms to molecules.- Studies of molecular dynamics in sub-fs scale using intense XUV pulses.- Harmonic generation in strongly-driven quantum rotors.- How to take full profit of a high repetition rate petawatt laser.- Atoms and molecules in intense laser fields (Theory).- Optimal control of molecular dynamicsby intense non-resonant laser pulses with applications to time-resolved X-ray imaging.- Ab initio strong field physics.- Above-threshold dissociation of molecules.

Kaoru Yamanouchi has been Professor of Chemistry at The University of Tokyo since April 1997. His research fields are in physical chemistry and AMO physics, especially gas phase laser spectroscopy, chemical reaction dynamics, and intense laser science. In 1996, he launched a new research project to investigate how atoms, molecules, and clusters behave in an intense laser field whose magnitude is as large as that of a Coulomb field within atoms and molecules. By developing new experimental techniques such as mass-resolved momentum imaging, pulsed gas electron diffraction, and coincidence momentum imaging, he has continued a successful exploration of the new research field of ultrafast intense laser science. Among his discoveries, ultrafast structural deformation of molecules and ultrafast hydrogen atom migration within hydrocarbon molecules are particularly noteworthy. He has also demonstrated that the ultrafast structural changes of molecules can in principle be probed in real time with femtosecond temporal resolution using a method called laser-assisted electron diffraction.

Philippe Martin is the Laser Interactions and Dynamics Laboratory Director of CEA-Saclay since 2013. His background relies on the interaction between strong laser fields and matter. He started with theoretical studies on laser assisted collisions in presence of strong electromagnetic fields. After a post-doctoral position at the "Université Libre de Bruxelles", he obtained a permanent position at CEA-Saclay where he developed a new thematic involving condensed matter systems. In the 2000's, by improving for the first time the temporal contrast of strong laser pulses thanks to a so-called "Double Plasma-Mirror," he has with his group demonstrated that with this "pulse cleaning method", it is now possible, using ultra-short pulses (a few ten's of fs), to reach electromagnetic energy fluxes of 1019 W/cm2 on intact solid-density targets. On such a short time scale, plasma ions hardly move