Stimulated Brillouin scattering of short intense laser pulses in a dense plasma

It is shown that in stimulated Brillouin scattering of picosecond laser pulses the proportion of the energy scattered in a strongly inhomogeneous short dense-plasma layer reaches a fraction of a percent at intensities below 2 ×1015 W cm-2 in the absence of a prepulse or less than 2 × 1014 W cm-2 if a prepulse is present. This can be used to detect a prepulse and to obtain an experimental estimate of the contrast. In the case of longer (~10 ps, ~2 × 1015 W cm-2) pulses the proportion of the energy scattered by the stimulated Brillouin process may reach several percent in the absence of a prepulse.