Modification of the coherence properties of a laser beam propagating through a plasma and its consequences for stimulated scattering instabilities

The control of coherence is a critical issue for the high-power lasers used in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). The level of coherence is an important parameter for the control of the light intensity distribution as well as the growth rate of parametric instabilities. Over the past few years, experimental and theoretical studies have evidenced the ability of an underdense plasma to reduce the spatial and temporal coherence of an intense laser beam propagating through it. As any process affecting laser propagation, plasma-induced incoherence appears fundamental because it can impact on parametric instabilities. We present results obtained with the six-beam LULI laser facility, in the nanosecond regime, showing direct evidences of the reduction of spatial and temporal coherence of an initially RPP-smoothed laser beam after propagation through a preformed plasma. Plasma induced incoherence (PII) proceeds from several mechanisms which include self-focusing, filamentation and non-linear coupling between these mechanisms and forward stimulated Brillouin scattering (FSBS). Part of these experiments was dedicated to the understanding of the physical mechanisms involved in PII, as the break up of a single hot spot and the existence of ion acoustic waves having small wave vectors transverse to the interaction beam which are produced in the PII processes. The spatial and temporal characteristics of these waves give a unique access to the influence of PII on stimulated Brillouin and Raman scattering.