The propagation characters of Gaussian laser beam in collisionless plasma are investigated by considering the ponderomotive and relativistic nonlinearities. The second-order differential equation of dimensionless beam width parameter is solved numerically, taking into account the effect of electron temperature. The results show that the ponderomotive force does not facilitate the relativistic self-focusing in all intensity ranges. In fact, there exists a certain intensity value that, if below this value, the ponderomotive nonlinearity can contribute to the relativistic self-focusing, or obstruct it, if above. It is also indicated that there is a temperature interval in which self-focusing can occur, while the beam diverges outside of this region. In addition, the results represent the existence of a “turning point temperature” in the mentioned interval that the self-focusing has the strongest power. The value of the turning point is dependent on laser intensity in which higher intensities result in higher turning point.

We employ a Monte Carlo ray-tracing code along with the ANSYS package to predict the optical and structural behavior in end-pumped CW Yb:YAG disk lasers. The presence of inhomogeneous temperature, stress, and strain distributions is responsible for many deleterious effects for laser action through disk fracture, strain-induced birefringence, and thermal lensing. The thermal lensing, in turn, results in the optical phase distortion in solid-state lasers. Furthermore, the dependence of optical phase distortion on variables such as the heat transfer coefficient, the cooling fluid temperature, and crystal thickness is discussed.

In this paper, the spatial evolution of an intense circularly polarized Gaussian laser beam propagated through a warm plasma is investigated, taking into account the ponderomotive force, Ohmic heating, external magnetic field, and collisional effects. Using the momentum transfer and energy equations, both modified electron temperature and electron density in plasma are obtained. By introducing the complex dielectric permittivity of warm magnetized plasma and using the complex eikonal function, coupled differential equations for beam width parameter are established and solved numerically. The effects of polarization state of laser and magnetic field on the laser spot size evolution are studied. It is observed that in case of the right-handed polarization, an increase in the value of external magnetic field causes an increase in the strength of the self-focusing, especially in the higher values, and consequently, the self-focusing occurs in shorter distance of propagation. Moreover, the results demonstrate the existence of laser intensity and electron temperature ranges where self-focusing can occur, while the beam diverges outside of these regions; meanwhile, in these intervals, there exists a turning point for each of intensity and temperature in which the self-focusing process has its strongest strength. Finally, it is found that the self-focusing effect can be enhanced by increasing the plasma frequency (plasma density).

The propagation characteristics of a Gaussian laser beam through warm collisional plasma are investigated by considering the ponderomotive force nonlinearity and the complex eikonal function. By introducing the dielectric permittivity of warm unmagnetized plasma and using the WKB and paraxial ray approximations, the coupled differential equations defining the variations of laser beam parameters are obtained and solved numerically. Effects of laser and plasma parameters such as the collision frequency, the initial laser intensity and its spot size on the beam width parameter and the axis laser intensity distribution are analyzed. It is shown that, self-focusing of the laser beam takes place faster by increasing the collision frequency and initial laser spot size and then after some distance propagation the laser beam abruptly loses its initial diameter and vastly diverges. Furthermore, the modified electron density distribution is obtained and the collision frequency effect on this distribution is studied.

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Terahertz (THz) radiation generation by nonlinear coupling of two color Gaussian laser beams in a plasma with multi-ion species is numerically investigated by taking into account the nonlinearity due to ponderomotive force and space-charge field. By calculating the modification of electron density distribution of such plasma, coupled differential equations governing the evolution of two laser beams' spot size and the outcome THz wave amplitude are established. The influence of the ionic species density and charge composition on the cross focusing of laser beams as well as generation of THz radiation is studied. The results mainly demonstrated that nonlinear effects in a multiply ionized plasma are excited stronger in comparison to the singly ionized one. It was found that the presence of ion species of higher charge enhances the cross focusing of beams and, consequently, THz field amplitude. The generated THz emission also strongly depends on the density of ionic species. The results showed that the minimum output of THz radiation is related to the higher density of singly charged ionic species. Moreover, it was found that the maximum value of THz amplitude takes place within a specific range of laser intensities.

This paper presents an investigation of the characteristics of the propagation of a Gaussian laser beam through an underdense plasma in the presence of a linear electron temperature ramp. Relativistic and ponderomotive nonlinearities are involved. It is shown that the ponderomotive nonlinearity induces a saturation mechanism in the self-focusing phenomenon and leads to the existence of a laser intensity threshold above which the beam starts to diverge. It is also found that on using the plasma electron temperature ramp-up, the upper-limit value shifts to higher values. Furthermore, results show that the slope of the temperature ramp and its sign are important in the determination of the focusing and defocusing of a laser beam for the cases in which the initial electron temperatures are chosen below or above the turning point temperature.

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