Upper limit power for self-guided propagation of intense lasers in plasma

It is shown that there is an upper-limit laser power for self-focusing of a laser pulse in plasma in addition to the well-known lower-limit critical power set by the relativistic effect. This upper limit is caused by the transverse ponderomotive force of the laser, which tends to expel plasma electr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2012-10, Vol.101 (18)
Main Authors: Wang, Wei-Min, Sheng, Zheng-Ming, Zeng, Ming, Liu, Yue, Hu, Zhi-Dan, Kawata, Shigeo, Zheng, Chun-Yang, Mori, Warren B., Chen, Li-Ming, Li, Yu-Tong, Zhang, Jie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
Channels
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
Density
ELECTRONS
LASER RADIATION
Lasers
LIGHT TRANSMISSION
Particle in cell technique
PLASMA
Plasma (physics)
PLASMA DENSITY
PLASMA SIMULATION
PONDEROMOTIVE FORCE
PULSES
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
Simulation
Three dimensional
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Summary:It is shown that there is an upper-limit laser power for self-focusing of a laser pulse in plasma in addition to the well-known lower-limit critical power set by the relativistic effect. This upper limit is caused by the transverse ponderomotive force of the laser, which tends to expel plasma electrons from the laser propagating area. Furthermore, there is a lower-limit plasma density for a given laser spot size, below which self-focusing does not occur for any laser power. Both the lower-limit density and the upper-limit power are derived theoretically and verified by two-dimensional and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. It is also found that plasma channels may be unfavorable for stable guiding of lasers above the upper-limit power.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.4765056