Abstract
Spatiotemporal smoothing of large-scale laser intensity fluctuations is observed for a laser beam focused into underdense helium plasmas. This smoothing is found to be severely enhanced when focusing the laser beam into a helium gas jet. In contrast to other experiments with preformed plasmas, the average and the peak laser intensities are well below the threshold for ponderomotive self-focusing. The coherence characteristics of the transmitted light are measured for various electron densities, and the smoothing effect is explained by multiple scattering of laser light on self-induced density perturbations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 4 |
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 90 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2003 |