Pushing the limits of plasma length in inertial-fusion laser-plasma interaction experiments

We demonstrate laser beam propagation and low backscatter in laser produced hohlraum plasmas of ignition plasma length. At intensities I < 5 x 10(14) W cm(-2) greater than 80% of the energy in a blue (3 omega, 351 nm) laser is transmitted through a L=5-mm long, high-temperature (Te = 2.5 keV), high-density (ne = 5 x 10(20) cm(-3)) plasma. These experiments show that the backscatter scales exponentially with plasma length which is consistent with linear theory. The backscatter calculated by a new steady state 3D laser-plasma interaction code developed for large ignition plasmas is in good agreement with the measurements.