Anomalous effects in single-slit diffraction of light at relativistic intensities

High-order harmonic generation via single-slit diffraction of relativistic laser pulses is investigated. Using fully kinetic two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) particle-in-cell simulations, we show that interesting optical phenomena emerge, including the generation of harmonic beams that are anomalously polarized orthongal to the driver, harmonic spectrum variation depending on the incident laser polarization, and a deflection of transmitted lights that leads to a tilted harmonic intensity pattern due to total angular momentum conservation. It is shown that these anomalous effects are associated with complex peripheral electron dynamics on the plasma vacuum interface. To account for these effects, a new theoretical model is developed that can calculate harmonic fields from arbitrary 2D electron motion within the diffraction plane based on the “relativistic oscillating window” mechanism; the results agree well with the simulations. Our model indicates that the optical properties of the harmonic beams are determined by the 2D in-plane electron motion, which can be leveraged to provide immense opportunities for manipulating light-matter interaction at relativistic intensities.