Study of nonlinear ohmic heating and ponderomotive force effects on the self-focusing and defocusing of Gaussian laser beams in collisional underdense plasmas
- Physics Department and Laser-Plasma Research Institute of Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Evin, Tehran (Iran, Islamic Republic of)
In the present paper, the propagation characteristics of a linearly polarized gaussian laser beam in a non-isothermal underdense collisional plasma is studied. By considering the effects of the ponderomotive force and ohmic heating of plasma electrons as the nonlinear mechanisms, the second order differential equation of the dimensionless beam width parameter has been obtained and solved at several initial ion temperatures. Furthermore, by using the nonlinear dielectric permittivity of the mentioned plasma medium in the paraxial approximation and its dependence on the propagation characteristics of the gaussian laser pulse, the perturbed electron density n{sub e}/n{sub 0e} is obtained and its variation in terms of the dimensionless plasma length is analyzed at different initial ion temperatures. Our results show that the dimensionless beam width parameter is strongly influenced by the initial plasma ion temperature. It is found that, for the self-focusing regime, the plasma electron density perturbation continuously oscillates between the initial density distribution and a minimum, and for the defocusing regime, the plasma electron density perturbation continuously oscillates between the initial density distribution and a maximum.
- OSTI ID:
- 22068908
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 19, Issue 11; Other Information: (c) 2012 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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