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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Mutual attraction of laser beams in plasmas: braided light
1Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1547, USA.
Abstract:
Using a variational method, we show that an effective attractive force exists between two Gaussian laser beams in a plasma because of a mutual coupling from relativistic mass corrections. The effective force can be generalized to other nonlinearities. This force can cause two laser beams to spiral around each other with a rotation period that is proportional to the Rayleigh length. These orbits are stable if the ratio of the orbit diameter to the laser spot size d(0)/W(0)=sqrt[2]. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations are presented which confirm the mutual attraction.

