Multibeam Stimulated Raman Scattering in Inertial Confinement Fusion Conditions

Stimulated Raman scattering from multiple laser beams arranged in a cone sharing a common daughter wave is investigated for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) conditions in a inhomogeneous plasma. It is found that the shared electron plasma wave (EPW) process, where the lasers collectively drive the same EPW, can lead to an absolute instability when the electron density reaches a matching condition dependent on the cone angle of the laser beams. This mechanism could explain recent experimental observations of hot electrons at early times in ICF experiments, at densities well below quarter critical when two plasmon decay is not expected to occur.