Self-organized coherent bursts of stimulated Raman scattering and speckle interaction in multi-speckled laser beams

Nonlinear physics governing the kinetic behavior of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in multi-speckled laser beams has been identified in the trapping regime over a wide range of kλD values (here k is the wave number of the electron plasma waves and λD is the Debye length) in homogeneous and inhomo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physics of plasmas 2013-01, Vol.20 (1)
Main Authors: Yin, L., Albright, B. J., Rose, H. A., Montgomery, D. S., Kline, J. L., Kirkwood, R. K., Michel, P., Bowers, K. J., Bergen, B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
Bursts
Coherence
Hot electrons
Landau damping
Lasers
Physics
Plasmas
Raman scattering
Reflectivity
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Summary:Nonlinear physics governing the kinetic behavior of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in multi-speckled laser beams has been identified in the trapping regime over a wide range of kλD values (here k is the wave number of the electron plasma waves and λD is the Debye length) in homogeneous and inhomogeneous plasmas. Hot electrons from intense speckles, both forward and side-loss hot electrons produced during SRS daughter electron plasma wave bowing and filamentation, seed and enhance the growth of SRS in neighboring speckles by reducing Landau damping. Trapping-enhanced speckle interaction through transport of hot electrons, backscatter, and sidescatter SRS light waves enable the system of speckles to self-organize and exhibit coherent, sub-ps SRS bursts with more than 100% instantaneous reflectivity, resulting in an SRS transverse coherence width much larger than a speckle width and a SRS spectrum that peaks outside the incident laser cone. SRS reflectivity is found to saturate above a threshold laser intensity at a level of reflectivity that depends on kλD: higher kλD leads to lower SRS and the reflectivity scales as ∼(kλD)−4. As kλD and Landau damping increase, speckle interaction via sidescattered light and side-loss hot electrons decreases and the occurrence of self-organized events becomes infrequent, leading to the reduction of time-averaged SRS reflectivity. It is found that the inclusion of a moderately strong magnetic field in the laser direction can effectively control SRS by suppressing transverse speckle interaction via hot electron transport.
ISSN:1070-664X
1089-7674
DOI:10.1063/1.4774964