G. M. Fraiman

Noise suppression and enhanced focusability in plasma Raman amplifier with multi-frequency pump

Laser pulse compression–amplification through Raman backscattering in plasmas can be facilitated by using multi-frequency pump laser beams. The efficiency of amplification is increased by suppressing the Raman instability of thermal fluctuations and seed precursors. Also the focusability of the amplified radiation is enhanced due to the suppression of large-scale longitudinal speckles in the pump wave structure.

Numerical modeling of quasitransient backward Raman amplification of laser pulses in moderately undercritical plasmas with multicharged ions

It was proposed recently that powerful optical laser pulses could be efficiently compressed through backward Raman amplification in ionized low density solids, in spite of strong damping of the resonant Langmuir wave. It was argued that, even for nonsaturated Landau damping of the Langmuir wave, the energy transfer from the pump laser pulse to the amplified seed laser pulse can nevertheless be highly efficient. This work numerically examines such regimes of strong damping, called quasitransient regimes, within the simplest model that takes into account the major effects. The simulations indicate that compression of powerful optical laser pulses in ionized low density solids indeed can be highly efficient.

Amplification of short laser pulses by Raman backscattering in capillary plasmas

Short laser pulses can be significantly amplified in the process of Raman backscattering in plasma inside an oversized dielectric capillary. A dielectric capillary allows obtaining high intensities of the output radiation by sustaining efficient amplification at large distances compared to the diffraction length. The efficiency of the interaction between the pump wave and the amplified pulse is shown not to be critically sensitive to the transverse structure of the wave fields. For a quasi-single-mode initial seed pulse and a low pump intensity, the amplified pulse tends to preserve its transverse structure due to nonlinear competition of the capillary eigen-modes. At a high power of the pump wave, multimode amplification always takes place but the growth of the front peak of the pulse still follows the one-dimensional model. The Raman backscattering instability of the pump wave resulting in the noise amplification can be suppressed in detuned interaction by chirping the pump wave or arranging an inhomogeneous plasma density profile along the trace of amplification. The efficiency of the desired pulse amplification does not significantly depend on detuning in the case of a smooth detuning profile. Density inhomogeneities are shown to exert less influence on the amplification within a capillary than in the one-dimensional problem. Parameters of a future experiment on the Raman amplification of a short laser pulse inside a capillary are proposed.

Coherent effects of ion–electron collisions in a strong laser field

Results of numerical and theoretical investigations of electron–ion collision processes in plasma in a strong laser field are represented. It is shown both numerically and analytically that the existing knowledge about e–i collisions in a rather strong field should be revised. Moreover, it was found that in such fields, along with the efficient growth of effective cross section, the effective bunching of electrons at phases takes place simultaneously. Effects are observed both at the linear and the circular laser field polarization. The quasiphenomenological approach for the electron–ion collision integral derivation for the case of strong fields is suggested.

Geometrical constraints on plasma couplers for Raman compression

Backward Raman compression in plasma is based on a 3-wave resonant interaction, which includes two counter-propagating laser pulses (pump and seed pulses) and an electron plasma wave (Langmuir wave). The resonant interaction can be ensured in nearly homogeneous plasmas. However, for high-power, large-aperture experiments, the homogeneous region becomes pancake-shaped and would likely be surrounded by thicker regions of inhomogeneous plasma. When these inhomogeneous plasma regions are extensive, significant inverse bremsstrahlung and seed dispersion may impede the compression effect. These deleterious effects may, however, be mitigated by chirping the seed and pump pulses.

Correlation effects in electron-ion collisions in a strong laser field

We examine elastic and inelastic scattering of electrons by ions in intense laser light. A method of numerical investigation of the scattering characteristics based on regularizing the Coulomb singularity is proposed. We show that over a broad range of parameter values the transport scattering cross section is weakly dependent on the intensity of the high-frequency field. We detect a significant modification of the dependence of the effective inelastic scattering cross section. We also show that the energy exchange with the field is determined by a fairly small group of electrons, called the representative electrons. Finally, we propose a qualitative model that explains our results by the fact that the leading contribution is provided by inelastic collisions of electrons with relatively small impact parameters traversing the region important for the interaction at large angles.

Bremsstrahlung in a strong laser field

We consider the bremsstrahlung of electrons as they collide with ions in a strong laser field. The bremsstrahlung spectrum has been found to be enriched in sufficiently strong fields. Particular attention is given to the coherent bremsstrahlung component. We propose a qualitative model that explains our results. The possibility of experimentally observing the coherent bremsstrahlung component in a strong field is discussed.

Ponderomotive acceleration of hot electrons in tenuous plasmas

The oscillation-center Hamiltonian is derived for a relativistic electron injected with an arbitrary momentum in a linearly polarized laser pulse propagating in tenuous plasma, assuming that the pulse length is smaller than the plasma wavelength. For hot electrons generated by collisions with ions under an intense laser drive, multiple regimes of ponderomotive acceleration are identified, and the laser dispersion is shown to affect the process at plasma densities down to 10(17) cm-3. We consider the regime when the cold plasma is not accelerated, requiring a/gammag<<1, where a is the laser parameter, proportional to the field amplitude, and gammag is the group-velocity Lorentz factor. In this case, the Lorentz factor gamma of hot electrons does not exceed Gamma [triple bond] alpha gammag after acceleration, assuming its initial value also satisfies gamma0 <or=Gamma. Yet gamma approximately Gamma is attained within a wide range of initial conditions; hence, a cutoff in the hot-electron distribution is predicted.

Drift Lagrangian for a relativistic particle in an intense laser field

The Lagrangian and Hamiltonian functions describing the average motion of a relativistic particle under the action of a slightly inhomogeneous intense laser field are obtained. In weak low-frequency background fields, such a particle on average drifts with an effective relativistically invariant mass, which depends on the laser intensity. The essence of the proposed ponderomotive formulation is presented in a physically intuitive and mathematically simple form yet represents a powerful tool for studying various nonlinear phenomena caused by the interaction of currently available smooth ultraintense laser pulses with plasmas.

Backward Raman amplification of broad-band pulses

A reduced fluid model of Raman backscattering is proposed that describes backward Raman amplification (BRA) of pulses with duration τ0 comparable to or even smaller than the plasma period 2π/ωp. At such a small τ0, a seed pulse can be amplified even if it has the same frequency as the pump (which is technologically advantageous), as opposed to that satisfying the Raman resonance condition. Using our theoretical model, we numerically calculate the BRA efficiency for such pulses as a function of τ0 and show that it remains reasonably high up to τ0≈2π/ωp. We also show that using short seed pulses in BRA makes the amplification less sensitive to quasistatic inhomogeneities of the plasma density. Amplification can persist even when the density perturbations are large enough to violate the commonly known condition of resonant amplification.