Self-modulation instability of an intense laser beam in a magnetized pair plasma

Abstract

The modulation instability of an intense right-hand elliptically polarized laser beam propagating through a magnetized pair plasma is investigated. The nonlinear dispersion relation, in which the relativistic and ponderomotive nonlinearities are taken into account, is obtained for the laser radiation in a magnetized pair plasma by Lorentz transformation. When the nonlinear frequency shift of the electromagnetic field in plasma is involved, the nonlinear evolution equation for the slowly varying envelope of the laser field is obtained. Thus, the modulation instability of the intense laser beam in a magnetized pair plasma is studied and the temporal growth rate of the instability is derived. The analysis shows that the peak growth rate of self-modulation instability is increased due to the axial magnetization of plasma.