Filamentation instability of beat waves in a hot magnetized plasma.

Abstract

A large-amplitude longitudinal electrostatic electron plasma wave excited at the beat frequency of two laser beams is shown to be strongly unstable against the filamentation instability for arbitrary short-wavelength perturbations in the presence of an external transverse magnetic field. The Vlasov equation in terms of guiding-center coordinates has been employed to obtain the nonlinear response of electrons in the plasma. It is concluded that a strong static magnetic field efficiently reduces the growth rate of the filamentation instabilty of the excited electron plasma wave.