Hose instability of relativistically strong femtosecond laser pulses with few field oscillations in a plasma under the excitation of a plasma wake wave

Abstract

A detailed theoretical analysis is carried out of the hose instability of relativistically strong laser pulses propagating in a plasma, whose duration is less than the period of a plasma wake wave. An analytic expression is obtained for the displacement of the mass center of a wave pulse, and the effect of this instability on the modification of the spectrum of laser radiation is analyzed for a wide range of initial parameters. It is shown that the development of instability is characterized by a power-law (rather than exponential) time dependence along the propagation path and does not deteriorate the self-compression of laser pulses.