  The ecologically best way to produce nanoparticles (NP) is based on laser
ablation in liquid (LAL). In the considered here case the LAL means that a gold
target is irradiated through transparent water. During and after irradiation
the heated material from surface of a target forms a plume which expands into
liquid.
  In this paper we study a reach set of physical processes mixed with
complicated hydrodynamic phenomena which all accompany LAL. These theoretical
and simulation investigations are very important for practical applications.
Laser pulses with different durations $\tau_L$ covering 5-th orders of
magnitudes range from 0.1 ps to 0.5 ns and large absorbed fluences $F_{abs}$
near optical breakdown of liquid are compared. It is shown that the trajectory
of the contact boundary with liquid at the middle and late stages after passing
of the instant of maximum intensity of the longest pulse are rather similar for
very different pulse durations (of course at comparable energies $F_{abs});$ we
consider the pulses with a Gaussian temporal shape $I\propto
\exp(-t^2/\tau_L^2).$ We follow how hot (few eV range) dense gold plasma
expands, cools down, intersects a saturation curve, and condenses into NPs.
  These NPs appear first inside the water-gold diffusively mixed intermediate
layer where gold vapor has the lowest temperature. Later in time pressure
around the gold-water contact drops down below critical pressure for water.
Thus NPs find themselves in gaseous water bubble where density of water
gradually decreases to $10^{-4}-10^{-5}$ g/cm$\!^3$ at the instant of maximum
expansion of a bubble.
