Low-level saturation of Brillouin backscattering due to cavity formation in high-intensity laser-plasma interaction.
Full particle-in-cell simulations of Brillouin backscattering in the high-intensity regime are presented. The final state of the strongly nonlinear evolution of the ion-acoustic wave packet consists of its collapse and the formation of a density cavity which is supported by large-amplitude localized electromagnetic fields. The cavitation manifests itself in large oscillations of the reflectivity which is terminated by a low-level saturation with strong kinetic effects. This newly discovered scenario demonstrates the importance of fully kinetic descriptions of Brillouin backscattering for high intensities.
Weber
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S
Centre Lasers Intenses et Applications (CELIA), UMR 5107 CNRS-Université Bordeaux 1-CEA, Université Bordeaux 1, 33405 Talence, France.
Riconda
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C
Tikhonchuk
V T
VT