Atoms and molecules interacting with ultrafast x-ray lasers

Author

Christian Buth — Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA

Abstract

X-ray science is undergoing one of its greatest revolutions to date with the construction of intense x-ray free electron lasers in Stanford, USA (LCLS), Hamburg, Germany (XFEL), and Harima Science Garden City, Japan (SCSS). These are vast, several-hundred-million dollar machines that will provide x-ray pulses that are many million times brighter than current sources. Similarly groundbreaking are the emerging attosecond light sources based on intense, pulsed lasers; they are relatively inexpensive laboratory-size instruments. These two emerging radiation sources will enable radically new research and have unnumbered potential applications in materials science, chemistry, biology, AMO, condensed-matter, and plasma physics.

My work contributes to a theoretical understanding of atoms and molecules in gas phase which are exposed to light from these x rays and laser sources. This lays the foundation for future studies using such new resources. So far my work has been based on x rays from a third-generation synchrotron facility synchronized to pulsed, intense, optical lasers. Specifically, I discuss in my talk:

• How laser-dressed atoms interact with x rays: the novel effect electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) for x rays provides opportunities for ultrafast x-ray pulse shaping.
• How laser-aligned molecules can be probed with x rays: properties of laser-alignment of molecules probing molecular dynamics with x rays.

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