title: Stochastic ion heating from many overlapping laser beams in fusion plasmas.
abstract: In this Letter, we show through numerical simulations and analytical results that overlapping multiple (N) laser beams in plasmas can lead to strong stochastic ion heating from many (~N(2)) electrostatic perturbations driven by beat waves between pairs of laser beams. For conditions typical of inertial-confinement-fusion experiment conditions, hundreds of such beat waves are driven in mm(3)-scale plasmas, leading to ion heating rates of several keV/ns. This mechanism saturates cross-beam energy transfer, with a reduction of linear gains by a factor ~4-5 and can strongly modify the overall hydrodynamics evolution of such laser-plasma systems.
authors.affiliation: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Michel
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Rozmus
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Divol
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Berger
authors.forename: R P J
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Town
authors.forename: S H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Glenzer
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Callahan