LPSE: A 3-D wave-based model of cross-beam energy transfer in laser-irradiated plasmas

Abstract The new component of the “laser–plasma simulation environment” (LPSE) described here is a practical numerical model that solves the coupled vector equations for the propagation of nearly monochromatic, coherent, electromagnetic waves in inhomogeneous unmagnetized plasmas. It operates efficiently in the numerically challenging semiclassical regime where characteristic plasma scale lengths are many times greater than the wavelength of the light and solutions are highly oscillatory. Solutions can be obtained in one, two, or three spatial dimensions and time. The model includes the effects of nonlinear coupling of electromagnetic waves to the low-frequency plasma perturbations (i.e., ion-acoustic response) that are responsible for stimulated Brillouin scattering. Induced plasma perturbations are assumed to be imposed on a prescribed large-scale inhomogeneous background that includes spatially varying plasma density and flow. Our code is directly relevant to the problem of cross-beam energy transfer in laser-driven inertial confinement fusion. It may also be applicable in other areas where eikonal solutions of multicomponent wave equations (or coupled wave equations) are insufficient, such as optical scattering from ultrasound, electron dynamics in quantum devices or in nanoscale light–matter interactions.