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Relativistic self-focusing of a rippled laser beam in a plasma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

M. V. ASTHANA ,
A. GIULIETTI ,
DINESH VARSHNEY  and
M. S. SODHA
M. V. ASTHANA
Affiliation:
Istituto di Fisica Atomica e Molecolare, Via del Giardino 7, I-56127, Pisa, Italy
A. GIULIETTI
Affiliation:
Istituto di Fisica Atomica e Molecolare, Via del Giardino 7, I-56127, Pisa, Italy
DINESH VARSHNEY
Affiliation:
School of Physics, Devi Ahilya University, Khandwa Road Campus, Indore 452017, India
M. S. SODHA
Affiliation:
Barkatullah University, Bhopal 462026, India
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Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the relativistic self-focusing of a rippled Gaussian laser beam in a plasma. Considering the nonlinearity as arising owing to relativistic variation of mass, and following the WKB and paraxial-ray approximations, the phenomenon of self-focusing of rippled laser beams is studied for arbitrary magnitude of nonlinearity. Pandey et al. [Phys. Fluids82, 1221 (1990)] have shown that a small ripple on the axis of the main beam grows very rapidly with distance of propagation as compared with the self-focusing of the main beam. Based on this analogy, we have analysed relativistic self-focusing of rippled beams in plasmas. The relativistic intensities with saturation effects of nonlinearity allow the nonlinear refractive index in the paraxial regime to have a slower radial dependence, and thus the ripple extracts relatively less energy from its neighbourhood.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , October 1999 , pp. 389 - 396
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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