Particle-in-cell simulations of laser crossbeam energy transfer via magnetized ion-acoustic wave

Abstract

Large magnetic fields, either imposed externally or produced spontaneously, are often present in laser-driven high-energy-density systems. In addition to changing plasma conditions, magnetic fields also directly modify laser-plasma interactions (LPI) by changing participating waves and their nonlonear interactions. In this paper, we use two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations to investigate how magnetic fields directly affect crossbeam energy transfer (CBET) from a pump to a seed laser beam, when the transfer is mediated by the ion-acoustic wave (IAW) quasimode. Our simulations are performed in the parameter space where CBET is the dominant process, and in a linear regime where pump depletion, distribution function evolution, and secondary instabilities are insignificant. We use a Fourier filter to separate out the seed signal, and project the seed fields to two electromagnetic eigenmodes, which become nondegenerate in magnetized plasmas. By comparing the seed energy before CBET occurs and after CBET reaches quasi-steady state, we extract CBET energy gains of both eigenmodes for lasers that are initially linearly polarized. Our simulations reveal that starting from a few MG fields, the two eigenmodes have different gains, and magnetization alters how the gains depend on laser detuning. The overall gain decreases with magnetization when the laser polarizations are initially parallel, while a nonzero gain becomes allowed when the laser polarizations are initially orthogonal. These findings qualitatively agree with theoretical expectations.