Cooperative and relaxation mechanisms in laser-induced plasma

A multiphoton many-body scattering theory is developed to treat the coopera tive and relaxation processes in laser interaction with matter. This theory combines Yang's theory of off-diagonal long range order for correlation wi th Pane's theory on relaxation. Important analytic relations between the "m edium matrix" and the "scattering matrix" are established in Fano's theory so that the physical processes can be formulated and their properties compu ted. A coherent picture emerges in treating the cooperative and competing r elaxation mechanisms in laser-induced plasma.