B. Bezzerides

Kinetic inflation of stimulated Raman backscatter in regimes of high linear Landau damping

Kinetic simulations and analysis show that backward stimulated Raman scattering (BSRS), in regimes of large linear Landau damping of the primary Langmuir wave, attains levels greatly exceeding the predictions of models based on fixed damping. These regimes are encountered in plasma conditions expected for target designs to be fielded at the National Ignition Facility [J. D. Lindl, Inertial Confinement Fusion (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1998)]. Trapped electrons in the Langmuir wave have the dual effect of reducing its damping, thereby enhancing the BSRS response, and saturating this response by phase detuning, a consequence of the trapping-induced, time-dependent, frequency shift. BSRS, then, occurs as a train of sub-picosecond pulses, arising from the competition between phase detuning and parametric regeneration. A simple three wave parametric model, including the effect of the nonlinear frequency shift and residual nonlinear damping, reproduces these essential features. A similar scenario applies to backward stimulated Brillouin scattering (BSBS). BSRS activity many orders of magnitude above noise level is found for intense laser speckles even when the primary Langmuir wave number times the Debye length is as high as 0.55. The simulation model consistently accounts for the competition of other instabilities, including BSBS, forward stimulated Raman scattering, and the Langmuir decay instability with cavitation.

Different kλD regimes for nonlinear effects on Langmuir wavesa)

As Langmuir waves (LWs) are driven to large amplitude in plasma, they are affected by nonlinear mechanisms. A global understanding, based on simulations and experiments, has emerged that identifies various nonlinear regimes depending on the dimensionless parameter kλD, where k is the Langmuir wave number and λD is the electron Debye length. The nonlinear phenomena arise due to wave-wave and wave-particle coupling mechanisms, and this basic separation between fluid-like nonlinearities and kinetic nonlinearities depends on the degree to which electron and ion Landau damping, as well as electron trapping, play a role. Previous ionospheric heating experiments [Cheung et al. Phys. Plasmas 8, 802 (2001)] identified cavitation/collapse and Langmuir decay instability (LDI), predominantly wave-wave mechanisms, to be the principal nonlinear effects for driven LWs with kλD<0.1, in agreement with fluid simulations [DuBois et al. Phys. Plasmas 8, 791 (2001)]. In the present research, collective Thomson scattering meas...

Inflation threshold: A nonlinear trapping-induced threshold for the rapid onset of stimulated Raman scattering from a single laser speckle

The rapid onset, with increasing laser intensity, of levels of backward stimulated Raman scattering (BSRS) exceeding linear convective predictions, from single laser hot spots was predicted by simulations [Vu et al., Phys. Plasmas 9, 1745 (2002)], and has been observed [Montgomery et al., Phys. Plasmas 9, 2311 (2002)] in nonlinear regimes dominated by electron trapping. A theory for this inflation threshold is given here. The threshold is the result of competition between velocity diffusion and trapping, and is exceeded when the convectively amplified SRS Langmuir wave (LW) achieves an amplitude for which the coherent trapping velocity increment of electrons in the LW (the half-width of the trapping separatrix) exceeds the rms diffusion velocity (resulting from background plasma fluctuations), accumulated in one bounce time, for electrons with mean velocities near the phase velocity of the LW. The results of this theory, when the kinetic theory of the one-dimensional (1D) reduced-description particle-in-c...

Quantitative comparison of reduced-description particle-in-cell and quasilinear-Zakharov models for parametrically excited Langmuir turbulence

The effect of kinetic processes on the saturation of parametric instabilities in an electromagnetically driven plasma is investigated. A reduced-description particle-in-cell technique is used as a benchmark to test a new quasilinear-Zakharov model which accounts for electron heating due to Landau damping by coupling the quasilinear diffusion equation to the Zakharov equations. The reduced-description particle-in-cell method utilizes a two-time-scale approximation which significantly reduces the numerical dissipation and ion noise levels. This approach allows accurate modeling of Langmuir and ion acoustic waves in regimes typically studied with Zakharov simulations. The comparison of the two models is performed for the test case of a one-dimensional homogeneous plasma driven by a spatially uniform pump in both the Langmuir decay instability cascade and collapse regimes. Good agreement is found in both weakly and strongly driven regimes for the total Langmuir wave energy and evolved electron velocity distri...

The effect of kinetic processes on Langmuir turbulence

Kinetic processes are shown to be crucial in determining the saturation level of stimulated Raman scattering for regimes relevant to NOVA [Campbell et al., Fusion Technol. 21, 1344 (1992)] and the National Ignition Facility [Lindl, Phys. Plasmas 2, 3933 (1995)]. To investigate these kinetic effects, the Zakharov, quasilinear-Zakharov, and reduced-description particle-in-cell simulation models are compared in the test case of a uniformly driven plasma. Good agreement is observed between all three simulation methods for relatively low primary Langmuir wave numbers (k1λDe∼0.1) in weakly driven regimes. In the strongly driven case, quasilinear diffusion provides an important correction to the Landau damping rate, producing saturation levels in agreement with reduced-description particle-in-cell simulations, in contrast to pure Zakharov simulations, which overestimate the saturation significantly. At higher k1λDe∼0.25, both the quasilinear-Zakharov and pure Zakharov models fail. In this regime, the autocorrela...

Experimental signatures of localization in Langmuir wave turbulence

Abstract Features in certain laser-plasma and ionospheric experiments are identified with the basic properties of Langmuir wave turbulence. Also, a model of caviton nucleation is presented which leads to certain novel scaling predictions.

Laying a foundation for laser-plasma modeling for the national ignition facility

Three multi-dimensional plasma simulation models for simulating parametric instabilities occurring in laser-produced plasmas are presented. These models are based on a common framework, henceforth referred to as reduced-description, in which the electromagnetic field is represented by three separate temporal envelopes in order to model parametric instabilities with high-frequency and low-frequency daughter waves. Because the temporal envelope representation is used, the explicit dependence on the laser time scale is removed from the simulations models. The time step of the simulation is then restricted by either the electron timescale or the ion timescale, depending on whether parametric instabilities that result in high-frequency daughter waves are important. These simulation models are the basic building blocks of a comprehensive, ongoing model development program at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and have been implemented in multi-dimension on the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) parallel computer. Test simulations of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), the Langmuir decay instability (LDI), and the interaction thereof, are presented.

“Bloch wave” modification of stimulated Raman by stimulated Brillouin scattering

Using the reduced-description particle-in-cell (RPIC) method, we study the coupling of backward stimulated Raman scattering (BSRS) and backward stimulated Brillouin scattering (BSBS) in regimes where the reflectivity involves the nonlinear behavior of particles trapped in the daughter plasma waves. The temporal envelope of a Langmuir wave (LW) obeys a Schrodinger equation where the potential is the periodic electron density fluctuation resulting from an ion-acoustic wave (IAW). The BSRS-driven LWs in this case have a Bloch wave structure and a modified dispersion due to the BSBS-driven spatially periodic IAW, which includes frequency band gaps at kLW∼kIAW/2∼k0 (kLW, kIAW, and k0 are the wave number of the LW, IAW, and incident pump electromagnetic wave, respectively). This band structure and the associated Bloch wave harmonic components are distinctly observed in RPIC calculations of the electron density fluctuation spectra and this structure may be observable in Thomson scatter. Bloch wave components gro...

Hydrodynamic coupling of a speckled laser beam to an axially flowing plasma

A plasma with a background flow along the direction of propagation of a laser beam is examined. The laser beam is subject to the beam-smoothing properties of a random phase plate. A simple model for the speckled properties of the laser beam is employed to show that the combined effect of the ponderomotive pressure of both the incident beam and stimulated Brillouin scattering can significantly perturb the hydrodynamics of the plasma.