Atoms in very strong laser fields

The remainder of this chapter is organised as follows. First, we briefly describe a typical system which has been used to achieve intense fields, the purpose being to stress the experimental connection between high laser fields and short pulses. We move on to describe various high field effects, together with simple physical explanations which have been used to interpret them. We then return to our main discussion about the role of atomic physics in these effects and, finally, to the description of a theoretical picture which holds promise to describe the response of many-electron atoms in strong fields. 

2 We stress that a one-electron model, in this context, does not mean an independent particle SCF system, but merely a one-electron-in-a-potential calculation. 

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