Relativistic Plasma-Wave Excitation by Collinear Optical Mixing

Authors

• C.E. Clayton, University of California, Los Angeles
• C. Joshi, University of California, Los Angeles
• C. Darrow, University of California, Los Angeles
• Donald P. Umstadter, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

5-27-1985

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Physical Review Letters 54, 2343 (1985). http://prl.aps.org. Copyright © 1985 American Physical Society. Permission to use.

Abstract

The relativistic plasma wave excited when the frequency difference between two copropagating CO₂ laser beams equals the plasma frequency is detected for the first time. The plasma-wave frequency, wave number, spatial extent, and saturation time are directly measured by use of 7-mrad, collective, ruby Thomson scattering and the forward-scattered ir spectrum. The wave amplitude ñ/n₀ is inferred to be (1-3)% which gives a longitudinal electric field of 0.3 to 1 GV/m at a laser intensity of 1.7×10¹³ W/cm², in reasonable agreement with theory.