Title:
Atoms and molecules interacting with ultrafast x-ray lasers

Author:
Christian Buth
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA


Abstract:
X-ray science is undergoing one of its greatest revolutions to date with the
construction of intense x-ray free electron lasers in Stanford, USA (LCLS),
Hamburg, Germany (XFEL), and Harima Science Garden City, Japan (SCSS).
These are vast, several-hundred-million dollar machines that will provide
x-ray pulses that are many million times brighter than current sources.
Similarly groundbreaking are the emerging attosecond light sources based
on intense, pulsed lasers;
they are relatively inexpensive laboratory-size instruments.
These two emerging radiation sources will enable radically new research and
have unnumbered potential applications in materials science, chemistry,
biology, AMO, condensed-matter, and plasma physics.

My work contributes to a theoretical understanding of atoms and molecules in
gas phase which are exposed to light from these x rays and laser sources.
This lays the foundation for future studies using such new resources.
So far my work has been based on x rays from a third-generation
synchrotron facility synchronized to pulsed, intense, optical lasers.
Specifically, I discuss in my talk:

(i) How laser-dressed atoms interact with x rays:
        the novel effect electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) for x rays
        provides opportunities for ultrafast x-ray pulse shaping
        
(ii) how laser-aligned molecules can be probed with x rays:
        properties of laser-alignment of molecules
        probing molecular dynamics with x rays.

I will also give an outlook on proposed experiments on double core holes in
laser-aligned molecules at Stanford's LCLS and the control of
Auger decay on an electronic time scale using attosecond light pulses.