Distinguishing Raman from strongly coupled Brillouin amplification for short pulses
Abstract
Plasma-based amplification by strongly coupled Brillouin scattering has recently been suggested for the compression of a short seed laser to ultrahigh intensities in sub-quarter-critical-density plasmas. However, by employing detailed spectral analysis of particle-in-cell simulations in the same parameter regime, we demonstrate that, in fact, Raman backscattering amplification is responsible for the growth and compression of the high-intensity, leading spike, where most of the energy compression occurs, while the ion mode only affects the low-intensity tail of the amplified pulse. The critical role of the initial seed shape is identified. A number of subtleties in the numerical simulations are also pointed out.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2016
- Source ID
- 10.1063/1.4951027
Entities
People
- Ido Barth
- Julia M. Mikhailova
- Matthew R. Edwards
- Nathaniel Fisch
- Qing Jia
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Defense Threat Reduction Agency
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
- Princeton University
- Russian Academy of Sciences
- United States Department of Energy