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All-optical suppression of relativistic self-focusing of laser beams in plasmas
It is demonstrated that a catastrophic relativistic self-focusing (RSF) of a high-power laser pulse can be prevented all-optically by a second, much weaker, copropagating pulse. RSF suppression occurs when the difference frequency of the pulses slightly exceeds the electron plasma frequency. The mutual defocusing is caused by the three-dimensional electron density perturbation driven by the laser beat wave slightly above the plasma resonance. A bienvelope model describing the early stage of the mutual defocusing is derived and analyzed. Later stages, characterized by the presence of a strong electromagnetic cascade, are investigated numerically. Stable propagation of the laser pulse with weakly varying spot size and peak amplitude over several Rayleigh lengths is predicted.U.S. Department of Energy DE-FG02-04ER54763 DE-FG02-04ER41321 DE-FG02-07ER54945NSF PHY-0114336Physic
Magnetization dynamics of two interacting spins in an external magnetic field
The longitudinal relaxation time of the magnetization of a system of two
exchange coupled spins subjected to a strong magnetic field is calculated
exactly by averaging the stochastic Gilbert-Landau-Lifshitz equation for the
magnetization, i.e., the Langevin equation of the process, over its
realizations so reducing the problem to a system of linear
differential-recurrence relations for the statistical moments (averaged
spherical harmonics). The system is solved in the frequency domain by matrix
continued fractions yielding the complete solution of the two-spin problem in
external fields for all values of the damping and barrier height parameters.
The magnetization relaxation time extracted from the exact solution is compared
with the inverse relaxation rate from Langer's theory of the decay of
metastable states, which yields in the high barrier and intermediate-to-high
damping limits the asymptotic behaviour of the greatest relaxation time.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures. The paper has been revised and new results added
(e.g., Fig. 5
Stimulated Raman backscattering of laser radiation in deep plasma channels
Stimulated Raman backscattering (RBS) of intense laser radiation confined by
a single-mode plasma channel with a radial variation of plasma frequency
greater than a homogeneous-plasma RBS bandwidth is characterized by a strong
transverse localization of resonantly-driven electron plasma waves (EPW). The
EPW localization reduces the peak growth rate of RBS and increases the
amplification bandwidth. The continuum of non-bound modes of backscattered
radiation shrinks the transverse field profile in a channel and increases the
RBS growth rate. Solution of the initial-value problem shows that an
electromagnetic pulse amplified by the RBS in the single-mode deep plasma
channel has a group velocity higher than in the case of homogeneous-plasma
Raman amplification. Implications to the design of an RBS pulse compressor in a
plasma channel are discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures; submitted to Physics of Plasma
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