Coherent electromagnetic structures in relativistic plasmas

Relativistic electromagnetic low-frequency solitary waves are found to occur in underdense plasmas in regimes where the laser pulse becomes filamented and undergoes energy depletion and frequency downshifting. These slowly propagating "subcycle-solitons" represent one of the channels of conversion of the laser pulse energy. Electron vortices and their associated quasistatic magnetic field represent a different important type of long lived coherent electromagnetic structures. Their generation is related to the dynamics of fast electron currents in the plasma.