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Abstract
The nonlinear laser-plasma interaction is widely discussed in the modern plasma literature with applications to inertial confinement fusion, generation of fast electrons, and amplification of high power radiation. Among nonlinear wave phenomena in plasma, the parametric wave coupling often plays the dominant role in laser-plasma interaction at moderate laser intensities since it is the lowest order nonlinear effect. The plasma wave can mediate the parametric laser coupling with high efficiency. We study the interplay of the parametric laser-plasma interaction and other physical effects which may affect this interaction. We study this interplay with an emphasis on the plasma-based backward Raman amplifier (BRA) based on the three-wave coupling.
Three major types of physical effects in the parametric wave coupling are studied. In the first part of the thesis, we find the longitudinal profiles of the interacting waves in cases of interest for pulse compression. We find the solution for the output pulse in backward Raman amplification seeded by a laser pulse of finite duration. We also propose a new scheme for high-power amplification for pulses in the terahertz frequency range. For this scheme, based on the four-wave mixing in a capillary filled with plasma, we find the profile of the output pulse. The second part of this thesis is devoted to transverse effects, which may reduce the focusability of the output pulse in backward Raman amplification. We find that the transverse modulations of the pump can be averaged and do not reduce the amplified pulse focusability if the longitudinal length of these modulations is much smaller than the amplification length. In the third part, we study the kinetic effects. We propose a simplified fluid model for the nonlinear Landau damping of a parametrically driven plasma wave and study the effect of nonlinear Landau damping in backward Raman amplification. This simplified model can be useful not only for understanding complex phenomena, but also for making more complex problems tractable numerically. Finally, we analyze current experimental data and indicate limiting mechanisms in plasma-based backward Raman amplifier.