Mutual attraction of laser beams in plasmas: braided light

Using a variational method, we show that an effective attractive force exists between two Gaussian laser beams in a plasma because of a mutual coupling from relativistic mass corrections. The effective force can be generalized to other nonlinearities. This force can cause two laser beams to spiral a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2000-09, Vol.85 (10), p.2124-2127
Main Authors: Ren, C, Hemker, RG, Fonseca, RA, Duda, BJ, Mori, WB
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
BEAM-BEAM INTERACTIONS
BEAM-PLASMA SYSTEMS
LASER RADIATION
RELATIVISTIC PLASMA
THEORETICAL DATA
VARIATIONAL METHODS
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Summary:Using a variational method, we show that an effective attractive force exists between two Gaussian laser beams in a plasma because of a mutual coupling from relativistic mass corrections. The effective force can be generalized to other nonlinearities. This force can cause two laser beams to spiral around each other with a rotation period that is proportional to the Rayleigh length. These orbits are stable if the ratio of the orbit diameter to the laser spot size d(0)/W(0)
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.85.2124