Experimental Study of Terahertz Radiation Generation in the Interaction of Ultrashort Laser Pulse with Gas Targets

We present the first experimental results obtained with a setup created on the basis of the PEARL laser facility for studying the processes of generating terahertz radiation from laser wake fields which are formed during the propagation of a high-power femtosecond laser pulse in a rarefied plasma. In particular, the occurrence of terahertz generation in the case where the laser–plasma interaction region is located between a pair of dielectric prisms of total internal reflection is demonstrated. The dependence of the terahertz radiation energy on the energy of a femtosecond laser pulse and on the plasma density is studied.