Cross-beam energy transfer in conditions relevant to direct-drive implosions on OMEGA
Abstract
In cross-beam energy transfer (CBET), the interference of two laser beams ponderomotively drives an ion-acoustic wave that coherently scatters light from one beam into the other. This redirection of laser beam energy can severely inhibit the performance of direct-drive inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions. To assess the role of nonlinear and kinetic processes in direct-drive-relevant CBET, the energy transfer between two laser beams in the plasma conditions of an ICF implosion at the OMEGA laser facility was modeled using particle-in-cell simulations. For typical laser beam intensities, the simulations are in excellent agreement with linear kinetic theory, indicating that nonlinear processes do not play a role in direct-drive implosions. At higher intensities, CBET can be modified by pump depletion, backward stimulated Raman scattering, or ion trapping, depending on the plasma density.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2304.13268,
title = {Cross-beam energy transfer in conditions relevant to direct-drive implosions on OMEGA},
author = {K. L. Nguyen and L. Yin and B. J. Albright and D. H. Edgell and R. K. Follett and D. Turnbull and D. H. Froula and J. P. Palastro},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.13268},
year = {2023}
}