Particle-in-cell modeling of laser Thomson scattering in low-density plasmas at elevated laser intensities

Incoherent Thomson scattering is a non-intrusive technique commonly used for measuring local plasma density. Within low-density, low-temperature plasmas and for sufficient laser intensity, the laser may perturb the local electron density via the ponderomotive force, causing the diagnostic to become intrusive and leading to erroneous results. A theoretical model for this effect is validated numerically via kinetic simulations of a quasi-neutral plasma using the particle-in-cell technique.