Relativistic cross-focusing of extraordinary and ordinary modes in a magnetoactive plasma

This paper presents the effect of self-focusing on a circularly polarized beam propagating along the static magnetic field when the extraordinary and ordinary modes are present simultaneously for relativistic intensities. The nonlinearity in the dielectric function arises on account of the relativistic variation of mass, which leads to the mutual coupling of the two modes that support the self-focusing of each other. The propagation and focusing of the first mode affects the propagation and focusing of the second mode. The fact that the two modes are laser-intensity dependent leads to cross-focusing. Dynamics of one laser beam affects the dynamics of the second laser beam. When both the beams or modes are strong, the nonlinearities introduced by the relativistic effect in the presence of the magnetic field are additive in nature, such that one beam can undergo oscillatory self-focusing and other beam simultaneously defocusing and vice versa. The dynamical equation governing the cross-focusing has been set up and a numerical solution has been presented for typical relativistic laser–plasma parameters from a slightly underdense to overdense plasma.