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Abstract

The interaction of relativistically strong tailored laser pulses with an atomic system is considered. Due to special tailoring of the laser pulse, the suppression of the relativistic drift of the ionized electron and a dramatic enhancement of the rescattering probability is shown to be achievable. The high harmonic generation rate in the relativistic regime is calculated and shown to be increased by several orders of magnitude compared to the case of conventional laser pulses. The energies of the revisiting electron at the atomic core can approach the MeV domain, thus rendering hard x-ray harmonics and nuclear reactions with single atoms feasible.