It is demonstrated by experiments and supporting particle simulations that the forward Raman instability is capable of producing extremely high-energy electrons in an underdense plasma. The instability has a high saturation level for the electrostatic wave component. Its consequences and applications to the laser electron accelerator and the laser-fusion pellet preheat are discussed.

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We present the first simultaneous observations of ion acoustic and electron plasma waves in laserproduced dense plasmas with Thomson scattering. In addition to measuring the standard plasma parameters, electron temperature and density, this novel experimental technique is shown to be a sensitive method for temporally and spatially resolved measurements of the averaged ionization stage of the plasma. Experiments with highly ionized gold plasmas clearly show that the inclusion of dielectronic recombination in radiation-hydrodynamic modeling is critically important to model cooling plasmas.[S0031-9007(98)

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