Control of laser plasma instabilities in hohlraums

Laser plasma instabilities are an important constraint on the operating regime for inertial fusion. Many techniques have been developed to control the various laser-driven instabilities. Experiments with long scale length plasmas are testing these instability levels, the nonlinear regimes, and the control mechanisms

Interaction of plasmas with intense lasers

The interaction of plasmas with intense lasers is an excellent example of how different fields of physics are inter-connected. Invention of the laser and its ongoing development has allowed the creation and study of high temperature, dense matter in the laboratory. The results both advance the underlying plasma science and are relevant to many fields ranging from astrophysics to fusion and nonlinear physics. A brief overview of the interaction physics is given. Selected topics are discussed to illustrate the exciting progress in experimental, theoretical and computational investigations with focussed laser intensities up to 10(21) W/cm(2)

Simulating Poynting Flux Acceleration in the Laboratory with Colliding Laser Pulses

We review recent PIC simulation results which show that double-sided irradiation of a thin over-dense plasma slab with ultra-intense laser pulses from both sides can lead to sustained comoving Poynting flux acceleration of electrons to energies much higher than the conventional ponderomotive limit. The result is a robust power-law electron momentum spectrum similar to astrophysical sources. We discuss future ultra-intense laser experiments that may be used to simulate astrophysical particle acceleration.Comment: Paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume for HEDLA06 conference proceedings, edited by G. Kyrala, in pres

Nonintegrable Interaction of Ion-Acoustic and Electromagnetic Waves in a Plasma

In this paper we re-examine the one-dimensional interaction of electromagnetic and ion acoustic waves in a plasma. Our model is similar to one solved by Rao et al. (Phys. Fluids, vol. 26, 2488 (1983)) under a number of analytical approximations. Here we perform a numerical investigation to examine the stability of the model. We find that for slightly over dense plasmas, the propagation of stable solitary modes can occur in an adiabatic regime where the ion acoustic electric field potential is enslaved to the electromagnetic field of a laser. But if the laser intensity or plasma density increases or the laser frequency decreases, the adiabatic regime loses stability via a transition to chaos. New asymptotic states are attained when the adiabatic regime no longer exists. In these new states, the plasma becomes rarefied, and the laser field tends to behave like a vacuum field.Comment: 19 pages, REVTeX, 6 ps figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Laser plasma interactions in hohlraums

Lasers plasma instabilities are an important constraint in x-ray driven inertial confinement fusion. In hohlraums irradiated with 1.06 {mu}m light on the Shiva laser, plasma instabilities were extremely deleterious, driving the program to the use of shorter wavelength light. Excellent coupling has been achieved in hohlraums driven with 0.35 {mu}m light on the Nova laser. Considerable attention is being given to the scaling of this excellent coupling to the larger hohlraums for an ignition target. Various instability control mechanisms such as large plasma wave damping and laser beam incoherence are discussed, as well as scaling experiments to check the instability levels

Laser-driven instabilities in long scalelength plasmas

In this update lecture we focus on laser-driven instabilities in long scalelength underdense plasmas. Particular attention is given to some recent experiments on Raman scattering of intense laser light. Many important features are in accord with theoretical expectations. These features include a correlation of hot electron generation with Raman scattering, an increase in this scattering as the density scale length increases, and collisional suppression of the instability. Some challenging aspects of the growing data base as well as various deficiencies in the understanding are discussed. The role of the plasmon decay instability 2..omega../sub pe/, Brillouin, and filamentation instabilities is also briefly considered

Laser-plasma coupling

The following topics are discribed: (1) ionization of target, (2) electromagnetic wave propagation in plasma, (3) collisional absorption, (4) light absorption in collisionless plasma, (5) resonance absorption, (6) instabilities, (7) Brillowin instability, and (8) some other effects. (MO

Wavelength scaling of laser plasma coupling

The use of shorter wavelength laser light both enhances collisional absorption and reduces deleterious collective plasma effects. Coupling processes which can be important in reactor-size targets are briefly reviewed. Simple estimates are presented for the intensity-wavelength regime in which collisional absorption is high and collective effects are minimized