Self-trapping and self-focusing of an elliptical laser beam in a collisionless magnetoplasma

Abstract

The authors have studied the self-trapping and self-focusing-defocusing of an elliptically shaped laser beam in a magnetoplasma. The critical self-trapping power of the beam for the ordinary mode is twice the critical power for the extraordinary mode. On both sides of the critical power required for self-trapping, there are separate values of the critical power for the x-dimension as well as for the y-dimension of the beam. At and above the critical value for the x-dimension, the beam defocuses in both directions while at and below the critical value for the y-dimension, it self-focuses in both directions. Self-trapping is also observed in the case of the ordinary mode at a critical value of the external magnetic field for any power value.