Observation of saturation of energy transfer between copropagating beams in a flowing plasma

R K Kirkwood; J D Moody; A B Langdon; B I Cohen; E A Williams; M R Dorr; J A Hittinger; R Berger; P E Young; L J Suter; L Divol; S H Glenzer; O L Landen; W Seka

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.215003

Observation of saturation of energy transfer between copropagating beams in a flowing plasma

Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Nov 18;89(21):215003. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.215003. Epub 2002 Nov 1.

Authors

R K Kirkwood¹, J D Moody, A B Langdon, B I Cohen, E A Williams, M R Dorr, J A Hittinger, R Berger, P E Young, L J Suter, L Divol, S H Glenzer, O L Landen, W Seka

Affiliation

¹ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, California 94551, USA.

PMID: 12443421
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.215003

Abstract

Experiments demonstrate energy and power transfer between copropagating, same frequency, beams crossing at a small angle in a plasma with a Mach 1 flow. The process is interpreted as amplification of the low intensity probe beam by the stimulated scatter of the high intensity pump beam. The observed probe amplification increases slowly with pump intensity and decreases with probe intensity, indicative of saturation limiting the energy and power transfer due to ion-wave nonlinearities and localized pump depletion. The results are consistent with numerical modeling including ion-wave nonlinearities.