title: Amplification and generation of ultra-intense twisted laser pulses via stimulated Raman scattering.
abstract: Twisted Laguerre-Gaussian lasers, with orbital angular momentum and characterized by doughnut-shaped intensity profiles, provide a transformative set of tools and research directions in a growing range of fields and applications, from super-resolution microcopy and ultra-fast optical communications to quantum computing and astrophysics. The impact of twisted light is widening as recent numerical calculations provided solutions to long-standing challenges in plasma-based acceleration by allowing for high-gradient positron acceleration. The production of ultra-high-intensity twisted laser pulses could then also have a broad influence on relativistic laser-matter interactions. Here we show theoretically and with ab initio three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations that stimulated Raman backscattering can generate and amplify twisted lasers to petawatt intensities in plasmas. This work may open new research directions in nonlinear optics and high-energy-density science, compact plasma-based accelerators and light sources.
authors.affiliation: GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: J
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5515-3624
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vieira
authors.affiliation: Central Laser Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot OX11 0QX, UK.
authors.forename: R M G M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Trines
authors.affiliation: GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: E P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Alves
authors.affiliation: GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal.|DCTI/ISCTE Lisbon University Institute, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Fonseca
authors.affiliation: GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Mendonça
authors.affiliation: Central Laser Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot OX11 0QX, UK.|Department of Physics, 107 Rottenrow East, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bingham
authors.affiliation: Central Laser Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot OX11 0QX, UK.|Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Norreys
authors.affiliation: GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: L O
authors.initials: LO
authors.lastname: Silva
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