Self-focusing of coaxial electromagnetic beams in a plasma with electron temperature dependent electron-ion recombination coefficient

Abstract

An analytical formulation, describing the propagation of multiple coaxial Gaussian electromagnetic (em) beams in a self-formed plasma channel with dominant collisional nonlinearity has been developed; the generation/recombination of high energy plasma particles has been considered as an additional source of plasma non-linearity in addition to Ohmic heating. Well versed paraxial approach in the vicinity of the intensity maximum has been adopted to solve the wave equation and examine the non-linear propagation of em beams while the dielectric function in the presence of the em field is determined from the balance of partial pressure gradient of electron/ion gas with the space charge field and energy balance of plasma particles. On the basis of the analysis the influence of this novel non-linearity on the propagation features like electron temperature, dielectric function and critical curves are derived numerically and graphically presented. The inclusion of this novel nonlinearity results in reduced focusing effect. The three regime characteristic features viz. oscillatory focusing/defocusing and steady divergence of beam propagation have also been worked out.