Observation of non-symmetric side-scattering during high-intensity laser-plasma interactions

• Published in: New journal of physics Vol. 20; no. 3; pp. 33027 - 33035
• Main Authors: Arunachalam, Ajay K, Schwab, Matthew B, Sävert, Alexander, Kaluza, Malte C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 29-03-2018
• Subjects: Argon; Argon plasma; Density distribution; density perturbation; density-gradient; Electron density; High power lasers; Laser plasma interactions; Lasers; near-critical; Physics; Plasma; plasma gradient scattering; Plasma interactions; Raman scattering; Scattering angle; side-scattering
• ISSN: 1367-2630; 1367-2630
• DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/aab039

Non-symmetric side-scattering has been observed during the interaction between a high-intensity laser pulse and under-dense argon plasma. The angle between the laser's forward direction and the scattered radiation is found to decrease for increasing electron densities ranging from 0.01 to 0.25nc, where nc is the critical density for the laser wavelength. We show that the observed features of the scattering cannot be described by Raman side-scattering but can be explained to be a consequence of the non-uniform density distribution of the plasma with the scattering angle being oriented along the direction of the resulting electron density gradient.