A Survey of Ion Acoustic Decay Instabilities in Laser Produced Plasma

Abstract

The ion acoustic decay instability (IADI) is a fundamentally important subject in plasma physics. The IADI is one of the concerns in laser fusion studies because of the production of hot electrons. Laser fusion requires a large scale plasma. We have for many years studied the IADI in microwave simulation experiments of laser-plasma interactions, and in laser produced plasma. The feature and the significance of the IADI in a large scale plasma are quite different from small scale plasma. The threshold is low, and the relatively weak intensity laser can heat significant hot electrons in a large scale plasma.