Laser envelope solitons in cold overdense plasmas

Abstract

Some questions pertaining to the existence and nature of one-dimensional envelope pulse solitons propagating into an overdense plasma are examined by a numerical investigation of the relativistic cold plasma equations. Finite amplitude single hump solitons with significant density cavitation are obtained for both immobile and mobile ions. For the immobile ion case the eigenvalue spectrum has a continuum nature and there is a smooth transition from standing single pulse solitons to moving solitons. A composite spectrum of moving multipeak solitons is also obtained and approximate analytical estimates of their amplitudes are provided.