On self-induced transparency in laser-plasma interactions

We study fully relativistic nonlinear one-dimensional equations describing steady-state solutions for an electromagnetic wave interacting with a plasma in the self-induced transparency regime. In addition to the well-known solution that corresponds to the transmission of the electromagnetic wave into plasma, another steady-state solution is shown to exist in a certain range of amplitudes of the wave. The latter solution corresponds to total reflection of the incident wave. The coexistence of the two solutions indicates the possibility of hysteretic behavior in the self-induced transparency. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-3640(99)00619-2].