Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications 2005
J.-C. Gauthier, et al.
J. Phys. IV France 133 (2006) 29-33
DOI: 10.1051/jp4:2006133006

Studies on laser beam propagation and stimulated scattering in multiple beam experiments

C. Labaune¹, K. Lewis^{1, 2}, H. Bandulet¹, S. Depierreux², S. Hüller³, P.E. Masson-Laborde³, D. Pesme³ and G. Riazuelo<sup>4

1</sup>  Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses, École Polytechnique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France
²  CEA-DCRE, BP. 12, 91680 Bruyéres-Le-Châtel, France
³  Centre de Physique Théorique, École Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France
⁴  CEA-DPTA, BP. 12, 91680 Bruyères-Le-Châtel, France

Abstract
The propagation and stimulated scattering of intense laser beams interacting with underdense plasmas are two important issues for inertial confinement fusion (ICF). The purpose of this work was to perform experiments under well-controlled interaction conditions and confront them with numerical simulations to test the physics included in the codes. Experimental diagnostics include time and space resolved images of incident and SBS light and of SBS-ion acoustic activity. New numerical diagnostics, including similar constraints as the experimental ones and the treatment of the propagation of the light between the emitting area and the detectors, have been developed. Particular care was put to include realistic plasma density and velocity profiles, as well as laser pulse shape in the simulations. In the experiments presented in this paper, the interaction beam was used with a random phase plate (RPP) to produce a statistical distribution of speckles in the focal volume. Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) was described using a decomposition of the spatial scales which provides a predictive modeling of SBS in an expanding mm-scale plasma. Spatial and temporal behavior of the SBS-ion acoustic waves was found to be in good agreement with the experimental ones for two laser intensities.

© EDP Sciences 2006