Nonlinear optical effects in a nucleus

Abstract

Intense laser technologies generate light with unprecedented and growing intensities. The possibility emerges that a nucleus responds nonlinearly to an intense light field, pointing to a yet little explored research area of nuclear nonlinear optics. We consider two-photon and three-photon absorption (with subsequent disintegration) processes of the deuteron, the simplest and the most fundamental nontrivial nucleus, as prototypes of nuclear nonlinear optical effects. Quantitative calculations are performed on these processes and novel observable effects are predicted.