Scaling of saturated stimulated Raman scattering with temperature and intensity in ignition scale plasmas

Measurements show the scaling of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) with laser intensity and plasma electron temperature under the conditions expected in ignition experiments. The scaling of the scattered energy with each parameter follows a power law with a small exponent (of order 1). Comparison with simulations suggests SRS is nonlinearly saturated in these cases. Further experiments with high Z dopants showed that the effect of electron-ion collisions on the measured SRS is primarily due to the inverse bremsstrahlung absorption of the scattered light. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.