Output beam polarisation of X-ray lasers with transient inversion

Janulewicz, K. A.*; Kim, C. M.*; Steil, H.*; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Nishikino, Masaharu; Hasegawa, Noboru

We describe measurement results on the polarization state of amplified spontaneous emission signal from a collisionally pumped Ni-like Ag soft X-ray laser with a transient inversion. The result obtained with a calibrated membrane beam splitter as a polarization state (P-state) selector shows that dominance one of the mutually perpendicular electric field components (p- or s-) in the output signal depends on the hydrodynamic state of the plasma medium. Two different hydrodynamic states were referred as a low gain and high gain regimes and the allocated P-states had dominant s- and p-component, respectively. It was also shown that due to correlations between p- and s-components in the process of coherent amplification of noise, correct description of the polarization state requires applying the generalized theory of polarization and formulated there the generalized degree of polarization.