Propagation regimes of intense circularly polarized laser beam in magnetoactive plasma

This paper presents an analytical and numerical investigation of an intense circularly polarized wave propagating along the static magnetic field parallel to oscillating magnetic field in magnetoactive plasma. In the relativistic regime such a magnetic field is created by pulse itself. The authors have studied different regimes of propagation with relativistic electron mass effect for magnetized plasma. An appropriate expression for dielectric tensor in relativistic magnetoactive plasma has been evaluated under paraxial theory. Two modes of propagation as extraordinary and ordinary exist; because of the relativistic effect, ultra-strong magnetic fields are generated which significantly influence the propagation of laser beam in plasma. The nature of propagation is characterized through the critical-divider curves in the normalized beam width with power plane For given values of normalized density (ω_p/ω) and magnetic field (ω_c/ω) the regions are namely steady divergence (SD), oscillatory divergence (OD) and self-focusing (SF). Numerical computations are performed for typical parameters of relativistic laser-plasma interaction: magnetic field B = 10-100 MG; intensity I = 10¹⁶ to 10²⁰ W/cm²; laser frequency ω = 1.1 × 10¹⁵ s⁻¹; cyclotron frequency ω_c = 1.7 × 10¹³ s⁻¹; electron density n_e = 2.18 × 10²⁰ cm⁻³. From the calculations, we confirm that a circularly polarized wave can propagate in different regimes for both the modes, and explicitly indicating enhancement in wave propagation, beam focusing/self-guiding and penetration of E-mode in presence of magnetic field.     

Relativistic channel-coupling focusing enhanced nonlinear guiding of an intense laser beam in a plasma channel

We employ the variational method to study the optical guiding of an intense laser beam in a preformed plasma channel without using the weakly relativistic approximation. Apart from the dependence on the laser power and the nonlinear channel strength parameter, the beam focusing properties is shown also to be governed by the laser intensity. Relativistic channel-coupling focusing, arising from the coupling between relativistic self-focusing and linear channel focusing, can enhance relativistic self-focusing but its strength is weaker than that of linear channel focusing.     

强激光在磁化等离子体中的调制不稳定性

采用洛伦兹变换推导出左旋椭圆偏振强激光在磁化等离子体中的非线性色散关系,根据Karpman方法推导出激光场包络的非线性控制方程,分析了在磁化等离子体中左旋椭圆偏振激光的调制不稳定性,得到了调制不稳定的时间增长率。分析结果表明,磁化等离子体中自调制不稳定的极大增长率较非磁化情况明显减小,且在激光等离子体临界面附近处调制不稳定性的时间增长率显著增大。     

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采用洛伦兹变换推导出左旋椭圆偏振强激光在磁化等离子体中的非线性色散关系,根据Karpman方法推导出激光场包络的非线性控制方程,分析了在磁化等离子体中左旋椭圆偏振激光的调制不稳定性,得到了调制不稳定的时间增长率。分析结果表明,磁化等离子体中自调制不稳定的极大增长率较非磁化情况明显减小,且在激光等离子体临界面附近处调制不稳定性的时间增长率显著增大。     

Modulation instability by intense laser beam in magnetized plasma

Modulation instability of an intense right-hand elliptically polarized laser beam propagating through magnetized plasma is investigated by a new method. The nonlinear dispersion relation, in which the relativistic and ponderomotive nonlinearities are taken into account, is obtained for the laser radiation in magnetized plasma by the Lorentz transformation. The Karpman equation is firstly generalized to the case of three dimensions with three field components. When the nonlinear frequency shift of the electromagnetic field in plasma is involved, the nonlinear evolution equation for the slowly varying envelope of the laser field is obtained. Thus, modulation instability of the intense laser beam in magnetized plasma is studied and the temporal growth rate of the instability is derived. The analysis shows that the peak growth rate of self-modulation instability is increased due to the axial magnetization of plasma. It is also shown that the growth rate of modulation instability is increased significantly near the critical surface in a laser-plasma.     

Nonlinear propagation of an intense Laguerre–Gaussian laser pulse in a plasma channel

The nonlinear propagation of an intense Laguerre–Gaussian(LG) laser pulse in a parabolic preformed plasma channel is analyzed by means of the variational method. The evolution equation of the spot size is derived including the effects of relativistic self-focusing, preformed channel focusing, and ponderomotive self-channeling. The parametric conditions of the LG laser pulse and plasma channel for propagating with constant spot size, periodically focusing and defocusing oscillation,catastrophic focusing, and solitary waves are obtained. Compared with the laser pulse with fundamental Gaussian(FG)mode, it is found that the effect of vacuum diffraction is reduced by half and the effects of relativistic and wakefield focusing are decreased by a quarter due to the hollow transverse intensity profile of the LG laser pulse, while the effect of channel focusing is the same order of magnitude with that of the FG laser pulse. Thus, the matched condition for the intense LG laser pulse with constant spot size is released obviously, while the parameters of the laser and plasma for the existence of solitary waves nearly coincide with those of the FG laser pulse.     

Modulation instability of intense laser beam in an electron-positron plasma

Modulation instability of an intense right-hand elliptically polarized laser beam propagating through an electron-positron plasma is investigated by a new method. The nonlinear dispersion relation, in which the relativistic and ponderomotive nonlinearities are taken into account, is obtained for the laser radiation in electron-positron plasma by the Lorentz transformation. The Karpman equation is generalized to the case of three dimensions with three field components. When the nonlinear frequency shift of the electromagnetic field in plasma is involved, the nonlinear evolution equation for the slowly varying envelope of the laser field is obtained. Thus, modulation instability of the intense laser beam in electron-positron plasma is studied and the temporal growth rate of the instability is derived. The analysis shows that the growth rate of modulation instability is increased significantly near the critical surface in a laser-plasma.     

Second-harmonic generation of a Gaussian laser beam in a self created magnetized plasma channel

The second-harmonic generation of an intense self-guided right circularly polarized laser beam in a magnetized plasma is investigated. The laser imparts oscillatory velocity to electrons and exerts a radial ponderomotive force on them to create a depleted density channel. The critical power for self-focusing shows huge reduction as electron cyclotron frequency approaches the laser frequency (/spl omega//sub c/ /spl rarr/ /spl omega/). In the presence of the self-created radial density gradient, the laser drives a density perturbation at the fundamental frequency. The density perturbation beats with the oscillatory velocity to produce a second harmonic current density, driving second harmonic radiation copropagating with the laser. The second harmonic, however, is azimuthally asymmetric with /spl theta/-variation as exp(i/spl theta/). Its amplitude shows resonant enhancement as /spl omega//sub c/ /spl rarr/ /spl omega/.     

Dissociation of molecules in intense laser beam

Dissociation of molecules in the strong laser beam at the intensity of 10¹³–10¹⁴ W/cm² is investigated. Experimentally, the fragmentation of neutral molecules, CH₄, C₂H₄, C₄H₈; and the disintegration of molecular ions, CH ₄ ⁺ are studied by fluorescence spectroscopy and mass spectroscopy respectively. Some new phenomena, the strong dependence on the laser intensity, the universal dissociation, and the thorough fragmentation, are found in the fragmentation, and cannot be explained by the existing theories, as Coulomb Explosion theory or Re-scattering theory. We have suggested two new theories. The Super-excited State (SES) theory interprets the neutral fragmentation of molecules, which is stimulated to the SES by intense laser pulse. The Morse potential energy surface of the SES shows that either direct dissociation or pre-dissociation can take place in the SESs. Another theory, the theory of Field-assisted Dissociation (FAD) interprets the fragmentation of ionic molecules. According to this theory, the electric field of the laser pulse is involved directly to the dissociation process. QCT calculations for the trajectories moving on the dressed PES are performed. The result shows that the chemical bond which is parallel to the laser field vector undergo dissociation spontaneously. The dissociation takes place around 100 fs, which is in agreement with the ultrafast measurement in the pump-probe experiment.     

Electron self-injection and acceleration in a hollow plasma channel driven by ultrashort intense laser pulses

The self-injection and acceleration of electrons in a hollow plasma channel driven by ultrashort intense laser pulses is investigated by Particle-in-Cell(PIC) simulations. It is shown that electrons from the bubble sheath will be self-injected into the hollow plasma channel and move radially towards the channel border due to the lack of focusing force in the hollow plasma channel. After several reflections near the channel wall by the strong focusing force, a self-injected electron bunch can be confined in the hollow plasma channel and quasi-phase-stably accelerated forward for the whole laser–plasma interaction process. These electrons using optical and plasma-related self-injection method can be self-organized to remain in the rear of the bubble, where the accelerating electric field is transversely uniform and nearly plateau along the propagation axis. Therefore, the self-injected electron bunch can be accelerated in a steady state without obvious oscillation and has a high quality with narrow energy spread and low divergence.     

Intense laser beam propagating in a plasma channel with flat-bottom leaky density profile

The propagation characteristics of an intense laser beam in a preformed plasma channel with the flat-bottom leaky density profile are investigated in detail. The evolution equation of the laser spot size is derived by employing variational technique. Seven propagation modes of the laser spot size are identified and some numerical results are presented. By comparison, we find that the results in this Letter may be more realistic since the flat-bottom leaky plasma channel comes closer to the practical plasma channel.     

Optical guiding of a radially polarized laser beam for inverseCherenkov acceleration in a plasma channel

In a conventional inverse Cherenkov accelerator (ICA), the background neutral gas provides the necessary dispersion to maintain the synchronism between the drive laser and the accelerated electrons. A laser-driven ICA is susceptible to diffraction, and the acceleration length is limited to approximately a Rayleigh range (for a Gaussian beam). In this paper, an ICA configuration is proposed that avoids the laser diffraction limitation by employing a preformed plasma channel. It is shown that a radially polarized laser beam can be optically guided if the plasma density increases with radius-like r². Expressions for the guided axial and radial components of the laser field are derived, and a numerical example is discussed     

Experimental evidence of plasma-induced incoherence of an intense laser beam propagating in an underdense plasma

Time dependent large angular spreading and spectral broadening of an intense randomized laser beam propagating in an underdense, well-characterized plasma is measured. The two features are correlated and increase with laser intensity or plasma density. This spatial and temporal incoherence imposed upon the beam via the coupling with the plasma is interpreted, in agreement with recent numerical simulations, as due to the interplay between dynamical filamentation and strongly driven stimulated Brillouin forward scattering.     

Allowable propagation of short pulse laser beam in a plasma channel and electromagnetic solitary waves

Nonparaxial and nonlinear propagation of a short intense laser beam in a parabolic plasma channel is analyzed by means of the variational method and nonlinear dynamics. The beam propagation properties are classified by five kinds of behaviors. In particularly, the electromagnetic solitary wave for finite pulse laser is found beside the other four propagation cases including beam periodically oscillating with defocussing and focusing amplitude, constant spot size, beam catastrophic focusing. It is also found that the laser pulse can be allowed to propagate in the plasma channel only when a certain relation for laser parameters and plasma channel parameters is satisfied. For the solitary wave, it may provide an effective way to obtain ultra-short laser pulse.     

飞秒强激光脉冲在等离子体中的自压缩

文章从激光等离子体相互作用的非线性薛定谔方程出发,理论研究了飞秒强激光脉冲在等离子体中的自压缩行为.结果表明在一定范围内随着激光脉冲宽度、激光强度的增大以及等离子体密度的减小,飞秒强激光脉冲在等离子体中传播的自压缩现象越明显.另外通过适当设定参量得到了近似稳定传播的基孤子.     

Resonant heating of a cluster plasma by intense laser light

The heating of a single argon (Ar) cluster by a strong laser field is studied using an electrostatic particle-in-cell code for a range of intensities and cluster sizes. Heating is dominated by a nonlinear resonant absorption process involving energetic electrons transiting through the cluster. This process gives rise to a threshold in field strength for strong absorption and controls the dielectric properties of the cluster.     

A plasma channel scheme for the interaction of an intense femtosecond laser pulse with a deuterium cluster jet

We propose a plasma channel scheme to obtain an improved table-top laser driven fusion neutron yield as a result of explosions of large deuterium clusters irradiated by an intense laser pulse. A cylindrical plasma channel is created by two moderate intensity laser prepulses at the edge of a deuterium cluster jet along which an intense main laser pulse propagates several nanoseconds later. With the aid of this plasma channel, the main laser pulse will be allowed to deposit its energy into the central region of the deuterium gas jet where the cluster sizes are larger and the atomic density is higher. The plasma channel formation and its impact on the deuterium ion energy spectrum and the consequent fusion neutron yield have been investigated. The calculated results show that a remarkable increase of the table-top laser driven fusion neutron yield would be expected.