Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2004
At high laser intensities, three step recollision processes such as high order harmonic generation and high-order ATI, are normally severely suppressed due to the magnetic field component of the laser pulse. However, if the laser pulse and relativistic ion beam are directed against each other, a significant increase in the frequency and the intensity of the pulse in the rest frame of the ions can occur. By performing calculations based on a Coulomb-corrected nondipole strong field approximation, we have shown that there is a range of intensities, Lorentz factors, and ion charges for which the suppression of the three step recollision processes is not severe, even for ponderomotive energies exceeding 10 keV. As an example, we consider parameters relevant to the accelerator that will be built at GSI-Darmstadt, capable of accelerating multicharged ions to Lorentz factors reaching 30.