Ponderomotive energy

In strong field laser physics, the term Ponderomotive Energy refers to the cycle averaged quiver energy of a free electron in an E-field as given by,

$U_{p}=e^{2}E_{a}^{2}/4m\omega _{0}^{2}$

Where e is the electron charge, E_a is the linearly polarised electric field amplitude, ω₀² is the laser carrier frequency and m is the electron mass.

In terms of the laser intensity I, it reads more simply $U_{p}=I/4\omega _{0}^{2}$, provided that atomic units are used (and even then a factor $8\pi /137$ may be missing?). Otherwise, using $I=c\epsilon _{0}E_{a}^{2}/2$, it reads less simply $U_{p}=e^{2}I/2c\epsilon _{0}m\omega _{0}^{2}$.

See also

• Ponderomotive force
• Harmonic generation