The various causes of stabilization

One of the most remarkable effects seen in the super-intense regime is that there exists anything like an atom at all, rather than everything decaying into a completely ionized plasma of individual electrons and nuclei. But there are many indications now, that well-defined atomic structures can survive the onslaught of a super-intense light pulse. This unexpected course of events can have several causes, but can be traced back mainly to the fact that an electromagnetic field is an AC phenomenon, and thus on the average has no tendency to displace or accelerate electrons with respect to the nucleus.