Relativistic Self Focusing of Short Pulse Radiation Beams in Plasmas

Download or read book Relativistic Self Focusing of Short Pulse Radiation Beams in Plasmas written by P. Sprangle and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An envelope equation is derived which describes the radial evolution of a radiation beam propagating through a plasma. The radiation envelope equation contains a defocusing term due to diffraction spreading and a focusing term due to relativistic oscillations of the plasma electrons. The case of a constant density background plasma is analyzed in detail and an expression for a critical laser power is derived. For powers exceeding the critical power the radiation envelope oscillators and does not diffract. Under certain conditions, the radiation beam propagates through the plasma with a constant radius envelope. Keywords: Self focusing; Laser plasma interactions; Radiation propagation; Envelope equation; Relativistic plasma.