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Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Nonlinear theory of nonparaxial laser pulse propagation in plasma channels
1Center for Beam Physics, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Abstract:
Nonparaxial propagation of ultrashort, high-power laser pulses in plasma channels is examined. In the adiabatic limit, pulse energy conservation, nonlinear group velocity, damped betatron oscillations, self-steepening, self-phase modulation, and shock formation are analyzed. In the nonadiabatic limit, the coupling of forward Raman scattering (FRS) and the self-modulation instability (SMI) is analyzed and growth rates are derived, including regimes of reduced growth. The SMI is found to dominate FRS in most regimes of interest.
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