Self-focusing and compression of laser pulses in partially stripped plasma

Propagation of a laser beam, having radial and axial Gaussian profile, in partially stripped plasma is analyzed. A wave equation, for the laser electric field driven by linear as well as nonlinear contributions due to atoms and plasma electrons, has been set up. A variational technique is used to obtain equations describing the evolution of the laser spot size and pulse length, and numerical methods are used to study their simultaneous evolution in partially stripped plasma. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3606485]