Cross Focusing of two Coaxial Gaussian Beams with Relativistic and Ponderomotive Nonlinearity

This paper presents the cross focusing of two high power lasers by taking off-axial contributions of the laser beams in a collisionless plasma. Due to relativistic and ponderomotive nonlinearities the two laser beams affect the dynamics of each other and cross focusing takes place. The expressions for the laser beam intensities by using the eikonal method are derived. The contributions of the r² and r⁴ terms are incorporated. By expanding the eikonal and the other relevant quantities up to the fourth power of r, the solution of the pump laser beam is obtained within the extended paraxial ray approximation. Filamentary structures of the laser beams are observed due to the relativistic and the ponderomotive nonlinearity. The focusing of the laser beams is shown to become fast in the extended paraxial region. Using the laser beam and the plasma parameters, appropriate for beat wave processes, the filaments of the laser beams are studied and the relevance of these results to beat wave processes is pointed out.