Propagation regimes of intense circularly polarized laser beam in magnetoactive plasma

This paper presents an analytical and numerical investigation of an intense circularly polarized wave propagating along the static magnetic field parallel to oscillating magnetic field in magnetoactive plasma. In the relativistic regime such a magnetic field is created by pulse itself. The authors have studied different regimes of propagation with relativistic electron mass effect for magnetized plasma. An appropriate expression for dielectric tensor in relativistic magnetoactive plasma has been evaluated under paraxial theory. Two modes of propagation as extraordinary and ordinary exist; because of the relativistic effect, ultra-strong magnetic fields are generated which significantly influence the propagation of laser beam in plasma. The nature of propagation is characterized through the critical-divider curves in the normalized beam width with power plane For given values of normalized density (ωp/ω) and magnetic field (ωc/ω) the regions are namely steady divergence (SD), oscillatory divergence (OD) and self-focusing (SF). Numerical computations are performed for typical parameters of relativistic laser–plasma interaction: magnetic field B = 10–100 MG; intensity I = 1016 to 1020 W/cm2; laser frequency ω = 1.1 × 1015 s−1; cyclotron frequency ωc = 1.7 × 1013 s−1; electron density ne = 2.18 × 1020 cm−3. From the calculations, we confirm that a circularly polarized wave can propagate in different regimes for both the modes, and explicitly indicating enhancement in wave propagation, beam focusing/self-guiding and penetration of E-mode in presence of magnetic field.