Psfc/ja-02-24 Studies of Stimulated Raman Scattering in Laser Plasma Interactions

Coupled theoretical and computational work is presented aimed at understanding and modeling stimulated Raman backscattering (SRBS) relevant to laser-plasma interactions (LPIs) in large-scale, nearly homogeneous plasmas. With the aid of a new code for simulating and studying the nonlinear coupling in space-time of a large number of modes, and a fluid Vlasov-Maxwell code for studying the evolution of large amplitude electron plasma waves, we report results and their interpretations to elucidate the following five observed, nonlinear phenomena associated with SRBS: coupling of SRBS to Langmuir decay interactions (LDIs); effect of ion-acoustic damping on SRBS; cascading of LDI; SRS cascades; and stimulated electron acoustic wave scattering (SEAS).