Mitigation of stimulated Raman backscattering by elliptical laser beam in collisionless plasma

Abstract

This paper presents theoretical and numerical study of the propagation of an elliptical laser beam in collisionless plasma with relativistic-ponderomotive nonlinearities and its effect on the excitation of electron plasma wave (EPW) and resulting stimulated Raman backscattering (SRBS) process. Nonlinear interaction between an intense elliptical laser beams with the electron plasma wave leads stimulated Raman backscattering. Following Wentzel Kramers Brillouin (WKB) and paraxial-ray approximations, non-linear differential equations for the beam width parameters of elliptical laser beam, electron plasma wave and back-scattered beam are set up and solved numerically. Numerical simulations have been carried out to investigate the effect of laser and plasma parameters on the focusing of elliptical laser beam in plasma and further its effect on the excitation of electron plasma wave and backreflectivity of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). The focusing of an elliptical laser beam, EPW and scattered wave are reduced at higher values of laser intensity in plasma. The amplitude of excited electron plasma wave, which depends on the focusing of main laser beam and electron plasma wave reduce for higher values of incident laser intensity. The results indicate that the focusing of waves mitigates the backreflectivity of SRS. The results are also compared with only relativistic nonlinearity and the Gaussian profile of laser beam. It is observed that an elliptical laser beam mitigates the backreflectivity of SRS at higher values of laser intensity. This study is relevant to inertial confinement fusion scheme, where SRS plays very important role.