Stimulated Raman scattering of gaussian laser beam in relativistic plasma

This paper presents an investigation of Stimulated Raman Scattering of gaussian laser beam in relativistic Plasma. The pump beam interacts with a pre-excited electron plasma wave and thereby generate a back-scattered wave. Due to intense laser beam, electron oscillatory velocity becomes comparable to the velocity of light, which modifies the background plasma density profile in a direction transverse to pump beam axis. The relativistic non-linearity due to increase in mass of the electrons effects the incident laser beam, electron plasma wave and back-scattered beam. We have set up the non-linear differential equations for the beam width parameters of the main beam, electron plasma wave, back-scattered wave and derived SRS back-reflectivity by taking full non-linear part of the dielectric constant of relativistic plasma with the help of moment theory approach. It is observed from the analysis that self-focusing of the pump beam greatly affects the SRS reflectivity, which plays a significant role in laser induced fusion. (C) 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.