New Journal of Physics (Jan 2015)

Raman backscattering saturation due to coupling between ωp and 2ωp modes in plasma

  • G Raj,
  • B Ersfeld,
  • G Vieux,
  • S Yoffe,
  • Min Sup Hur,
  • R A Cairns,
  • D A Jaroszynski

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/17/10/103026
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 17, no. 10
p. 103026

Abstract

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Raman backscattering (RBS) in plasma is the basis of plasma-based amplifiers and is important in laser-driven fusion experiments. We show that saturation can arise from nonlinearities due to coupling between the fundamental and harmonic plasma wave modes for sufficiently intense pump and seed pulses. We present a time-dependent analysis that shows that plasma wave phase shifts reach a maximum close to wavebreaking. The study contributes to a new understanding of RBS saturation for counter-propagating laser pulses.

Keywords