Observation of a transition from fluid to kinetic nonlinearities for langmuir waves driven by stimulated Raman backscatter.

Thomson scattering is used to measure Langmuir waves (LW) driven by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in a diffraction limited laser focal spot. For SRS at wave numbers klambda(D) less similar 0.29, where k is the LW number and lambda(D) is the Debye length, multiple waves are detected and are attributed to the Langmuir decay instability (LDI) driven by the primary LW. At klambda(D) greater similar 0.29, a single wave, frequency-broadened spectrum is observed. The transition from the fluid to the kinetic regime is qualitatively consistent with particle-in-cell simulations and crossing of the LDI amplitude threshold above that for LW self-focusing.