Excitation of plasma wave by lasers beating in a collisional and mild-relativistic plasma

Abstract

Excitation of plasma wave by two lasers beating in a collisional dominated relativistic plasma is investigated. We study the energy exchange between a plasma wave and two co-propagating lasers in plasma including the effect of relativistic mass change and electron-ion collisions. Two lasers, having frequency difference equal to the plasma frequency, excite a plasma beat wave resonantly by the ponderomotive force, which obeys the energy and momentum conservation. The relativistic effect and the electron-ion collision both contribute in energy exchange between the interacting waves in the beat-wave acceleration mechanism. Our study shows that the initial phase difference between interacting waves generates a phase mismatch between lasers and plasma wave, which alters the rate of amplitude variations of the interacting waves and, hence, affects the energy exchange between the interacting waves. This study may be crucial to design a compact plasma accelerator in low-intensity regime.