Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 1978–1981 (1999)A Long-Wavelength Hosing Instability in Laser-Plasma InteractionsReceived 24 December 1998; published in the issue dated 6 September 1999 The nonlinear final state of short-pulse lasers is examined using fully explicit particle-in-cell simulations. A new long-wavelength hosing instability is found to be dominant after a few Rayleigh lengths of propagation. This instability causes self-trapped electrons to be displaced off axis; we find that ion motion is important at the highest densities studied. A possible explanation for this instability is given based on a new variational principle analysis for short-pulse lasers propagating in underdense plasma. © 1999 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1978
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1978
PACS:
52.40.Nk, 52.35.Py, 52.60.+h, 52.65.Rr
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