The formation and subsequent self-organization of a spiral electron density modulation initialized in a plasma produced by optical-field ionization of various gas species is studied. Our analytical model predicts that the spiral density modulation results from space-dependent drift velocities of the ionized electrons due to the spatial and temporal intensity distributions of the circularly polarized ionizing laser. The spiral topology of the electron density has been validated by three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Simulations further show that the spiral density modulation subsequently self-organizes to form numerous microfilaments, i.e., thin strands that arise because of a modified streaming instability.

中文翻译：

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圆极化场电离诱导的等离子体中螺旋密度波的形成和微细丝化。


研究了在各种气体种类的光场电离产生的等离子体中初始化的螺旋电子密度调制的形成和随后的自组织。我们的分析模型预测，由于圆偏振电离激光器的空间和时间强度分布，电离电子的空间依赖性漂移速度导致了螺旋密度调制。电子密度的螺旋拓扑结构已通过三维胞内粒子模拟得到验证。模拟进一步表明，螺旋密度调制随后自组织形成许多微丝，即由于改进的流不稳定性而产生的细链。