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Title: Study of second harmonic generation by high power laser beam in magneto plasma

Journal Article · · Physics of Plasmas
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4759014· OSTI ID:22072606
 [1];  [2]
  1. Ujjain Engineering College, Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh 465010 (India)
  2. Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110016 (India)

This paper examines the problem of nonlinear generation of second harmonic of a high power laser pulse propagating in magnetized plasma. The propagation of strong laser beam is proposed in the direction perpendicular to a relatively weak static magnetic field. The laser pulse is taken to be linearly polarized, with the orientation of its electric field that corresponds to an ordinary electromagnetic wave. Besides the standard ponderomotive nonlinearity, the appropriate wave equation also contains the nonlinearity that arises from the relativistic electron jitter velocities. During its propagation, the laser beam gets filamented on account of relativistic and pondermotive nonlinearities present in the plasma. The generated plasma wave gets coupled into the filamentary structures of the pump beam. Due to the expected presence of the beam filamentation, the work has been carried out by considering modified paraxial approximation (i.e., beyond the standard paraxial approximation of a very broad beam). It is found that the power of the plasma wave is significantly affected by the magnetic field strength in the presence of both relativistic and pondermotive nonlinearities. It is investigated that the second harmonic generation is also considerably modified by altering the strength of magnetic field. To see the effect of static magnetic field on the harmonic generation, a key parameter, i.e., the ratio of the cyclotron frequency {omega}{sub c}=eB{sub 0}/mc over the laser frequency {omega}{sub 0} has been used, where c is the velocity of light, m and e are the mass and charge of the electron and B{sub 0} is the externally applied magnetic field.

OSTI ID:
22072606
Journal Information:
Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 19, Issue 12; 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