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Article
All-optical suppression of relativistic self-focusing of laser beams in plasmas
Physical Review E (2008)
  • Serguei Y. Kalmykov
  • Sunghwan A. Yi
  • Gennady Shvets
Abstract

It is demonstrated that a catastrophic relativistic self-focusing (RSF) of a high-power laser pulse can be prevented all-optically by a second, much weaker, copropagating pulse. RSF suppression occurs when the difference frequency of the pulses slightly exceeds the electron plasma frequency. The mutual defocusing is caused by the three-dimensional electron density perturbation driven by the laser beat wave slightly above the plasma resonance. A bi-envelope model describing the early stage of the mutual defocusing is derived and analyzed. Later stages, characterized by the presence of a strong electromagnetic cascade, are investigated numerically. Stable propagation of the laser pulse with weakly varying spot size and peak amplitude over several Rayleigh lengths is predicted.

Keywords
  • Relativistic self-focusing,
  • plasma-wave induced nonlinear refraction,
  • electromagnetic cascading
Publication Date
Fall November, 2008
Citation Information
Serguei Y. Kalmykov, Sunghwan A. Yi and Gennady Shvets. "All-optical suppression of relativistic self-focusing of laser beams in plasmas" Physical Review E Vol. 78 (2008)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/serguei_kalmykov/23/