Three-wave scattering in magnetized plasmas: from cold fluid to quantized Lagrangian

Abstract

Large amplitude waves in magnetized plasmas, generated either by external pumps or internal instabilities, can scatter via three-waves interactions. While three-wave scatterings in either forward or backward geometry are well-known, what happens when waves propagate at angles with one another in magnetized plasmas remains largely unknown, mainly due to the analytical difficulty of this problem. In this paper, we overcome this analytical difficulty and find a convenient formula for three-wave coupling coefficients in cold, uniform, magnetized plasmas in the most general geometry. This is achieved by systematically solving the fluid-Maxwell model to second order using a multiscale perturbative expansion. The general formula for the coupling coefficient becomes transparent when we reformulate it as the S matrix element of a quantized Lagrangian. Using the quantized Lagrangian, it is possible to bypass the perturbative solution and directly obtain the nonlinear coupling coefficient from the linear response of plasmas. To illustrate how to evaluate the cold coupling coefficient, we give a set of examples where the participating waves are either quasi-transverse or quasi-longitudinal. In these examples, we determine the angular dependence of three-wave scattering, and demonstrate that backscattering is not necessarily the strongest scattering channel in magnetized plasmas, in contrast to what happens in unmgnetized plasmas. Our approach gives a more complete picture, beyond the simple collimated geometry, of how injected waves can decay in magnetic confinement devices, as well as how lasers can be scattered in magnetized plasma targets.