Filamentation and forward Brillouin scatter of entire smoothed and aberrated laser beams

Laser–plasma interactions are sensitive to both the fine-scale speckle and the larger scale envelope intensity of the beam. For some time, simulations have been done on volumes taken from part of the laser beam cross-section, and the results from multiple simulations extrapolated to predict the behavior of the entire beam. However, such extrapolation could very well miss effects of the larger scale structure on the fine-scale. The only definitive method is to simulate the entire beam. These very large calculations have not been feasible until recently, but they are now possible on massively parallel computers. Whole beam simulations show the dramatic difference in the propagation and break up of smoothed and aberrated beams.

[1]  S. Hüller,et al.  NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF FILAMENTATION AND ITS INTERPLAY WITH SBS IN UNDERDENSE PLASMAS , 1996 .

[2]  A. Langdon,et al.  DYNAMICS OF PONDEROMOTIVE SELF-FOCUSING IN PLASMAS , 1991 .

[3]  Diana Anderson,et al.  Variational approach to nonlinear self‐focusing of Gaussian laser beams , 1977 .

[4]  Kunioki Mima,et al.  Random Phasing of High-Power Lasers for Uniform Target Acceleration and Plasma-Instability Suppression , 1984 .

[5]  J. Tukey,et al.  An algorithm for the machine calculation of complex Fourier series , 1965 .

[6]  Stefan Hüller,et al.  Interaction of two neighboring laser beams taking into account the effects of plasma hydrodynamics , 1997 .

[7]  Joshua E. Rothenberg,et al.  Comparison of beam-smoothing methods for direct-drive inertial confinement fusion , 1997 .

[8]  J. Lindl.  Development of the indirect‐drive approach to inertial confinement fusion and the target physics basis for ignition and gain , 1995 .

[9]  H. Rose,et al.  Initial development of ponderomotive filaments in plasma from intense hot spots produced by a random phase plate , 1993 .

[10]  S. Ghosal,et al.  Two-dimensional plasma flow past a laser beam , 1997 .

[11]  J. Moody,et al.  Laser beam smoothing and backscatter saturation processes in plasmas relevant to National Ignition Facility hohlraums , 1998 .

[12]  A. Schmitt.  Three‐dimensional filamentation of light in laser plasmas , 1991 .

[13]  François Vidal,et al.  Laser-plasma filamentation and the spatially periodic nonlinear Schrödinger equation approximation , 1997 .

[14]  Stefan Hüller,et al.  SBS reflectivity from spatially smoothed laser beams: Random phase plates versus polarization smoothing , 1998 .

[15]  D. Hinkel,et al.  OBSERVATIONS OF LASER-BEAM BENDING DUE TO TRANSVERSE PLASMA FLOW , 1998 .

[16]  Young,et al.  Spreading of intense laser beams due to filamentation. , 1994, Physical review letters.

[17]  P. Kaw,et al.  Filamentation and trapping of electromagnetic radiation in plasmas , 1973 .

[18]  C. Max.  Strong self‐focusing due to the ponderomotive force in plasmas , 1976 .

[19]  Andrew J. Schmitt,et al.  The effects of optical smoothing techniques on filamentation in laser plasmas , 1988 .

[20]  Random phase plate hot spots and their effect on stimulated Brillouin backscatter and self‐focusing , 1995 .

[21]  Peter Wegner,et al.  Why interaction is more powerful than algorithms , 1997, CACM.

[22]  J. D. Moody,et al.  Laser–plasma interactions in ignition‐scale hohlraum plasmas , 1996 .

[23]  R. Short,et al.  Filamentation of laser light in flowing plasmas , 1982 .

[24]  A. Langdon,et al.  Landau‐fluid simulation of laser filamentation , 1994 .

[25]  Rose,et al.  Laser hot spots and the breakdown of linear instability theory with application to stimulated Brillouin scattering. , 1994, Physical review letters.

[26]  Peter A. Amendt,et al.  Design and modeling of ignition targets for the National Ignition Facility , 1995 .

[27]  R. D. Jones,et al.  ``Flicker'' in small scale laser-plasma self-focusing , 1988 .

[28]  Ernest J. Valeo,et al.  Thermal Self-Focusing of Electromagnetic Waves in Plasmas , 1974 .

[29]  Michael D. Feit,et al.  Beam nonparaxiality, filament formation, and beam breakup in the self-focusing of optical beams , 1988 .

[30]  Rose,et al.  Flow-induced beam steering in a single laser hot spot , 2000, Physical review letters.

[31]  A. Schmitt,et al.  Time-dependent filamentation and stimulated Brillouin forward scattering in inertial confinement fusion plasmas , 1998 .

[32]  Williams,et al.  Influence of spatial and temporal laser beam smoothing on stimulated brillouin scattering in filamentary laser light. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[33]  Harvey A. Rose.  Laser beam deflection by flow and nonlinear self‐focusing , 1996 .

[34]  Andrew J. Schmitt,et al.  Theory of induced spatial incoherence , 1987 .

[35]  Joshua E. Rothenberg,et al.  Reduction of laser self-focusing in plasma by polarization smoothing , 1998 .

[36]  Williams,et al.  Laser Beam Deflection Induced by Transverse Plasma Flow. , 1996, Physical review letters.

[37]  Samuel A. Letzring,et al.  Improved laser‐beam uniformity using the angular dispersion of frequency‐modulated light , 1989 .

[38]  Anthony Skjellum,et al.  Using MPI - portable parallel programming with the message-parsing interface , 1994 .

[39]  H. Rose,et al.  Statistical properties of laser hot spots produced by a random phase plate , 1993 .

[40]  A. Langdon,et al.  Filamentation and subsequent decay of laser light in plasmas , 1975 .

[41]  Joshua E. Rothenberg,et al.  Stimulated Raman and Brillouin scattering of polarization-smoothed and temporally smoothed laser beams , 1999 .

[42]  A. B. Langdon,et al.  Theory and three‐dimensional simulation of light filamentation in laser‐produced plasma , 1993 .

[43]  Rankin,et al.  Diffraction and the evolution of small scale filaments in a laser-produced plasma. , 1989, Physical review letters.