title: Parametric instabilities of intense lasers from interaction with relativistic hot plasmas
abstract: The stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and relativistic modulational instability (RMI) of intense lasers in relativistic hot plasmas are studied, using the waterbag distribution in momentum space. Two cases are considered: a single hot electron distribution and a cold plasma attached with a hot electron tail. It is shown that both high temperatures and hot electron tails can significantly reduce the instability growth rates, shift the unstable regions in the wave-vector space, and change the Raman scattering frequency spectra from the cold plasma theory. In particular, at low-light intensities, there exists a cutoff thermal velocity beyond which SRS is completely suppressed. At high-light intensities, no clear cutoff thermal velocity is found owing to the merging of SRS with RMI.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, 2-6 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
authors.initials: ZM
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mima
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sentoku
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nishihara