Evidence of relativistic laser beam filamentation in back-reflected images
The back-reflected image of a 100 TW laser incident on a long scale length plasma is measured. The plasma is deliberately preformed on a solid planar target in a controlled way. Multiple highly intense spots are observed inside the original focal spot. These spots could be the experimental evidence for the laser beam relativistic filamentation in the plasma. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations for parameters close to the experimental values are performed. The experimental observations and the filamentation dynamics obtained in the PIC simulations are in a good agreement.
Tanaka
KA
Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Yamada-oka 2-6, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Allen
MM
Pukhov
A
Kodama
R
Fujita
H
Kato
Y
Kawasaki
T
Kitagawa
Y
Mima
K
Morio
N
Shiraga
H
Iwata
M
Miyakoshi
T
Yamanaka
T