Ion acoustic parametric decay instability in laser-produced plasma with varying ionic charge

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Studies of the ion acoustic decay instability (IADI) are reported in which the target material of the laser-produced plasma was varied. The IADI was monitored by observing the Stokes peaks of the second-harmonic spectrum. Its threshold was quite low (≊2×1013 W/cm2 ) even in high-Z plasma. The threshold increased only weakly with Z. On the other hand, the instability intensity decreased strongly with Z, which is attributed to the decrease of the growth rate. A simple theory explains these experimental results reasonably well.