Kinetic effects in stimulated Brillouin scattering

The role of ion and electron kinetic effects in the nonlinear evolution of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is investigated by means of particle-in-cell numerical simulations. The simulations were carried out in one and two spatial dimensions (1D and 2D), with a full PIC code, in which both ions and electrons are kinetic. The full PIC simulations are compared with those obtained from a hybrid PIC code (kinetic ions and Boltzmann electrons), making it possible to determine in which limit the electron kinetic effects are important. The simulation geometry corresponds to a coherent laser beam interacting with an expanding plasma slab. In the 1D simulations, the interaction becomes incoherent, as time goes on, in a domain that spatially begins in the plasma region close to the laser light entrance, and that ends within the plasma at a frontier which moves faster than the ion acoustic wave (IAW) velocity. The higher the laser intensity, the faster moves the frontier of this spatial domain. The SBS reflectivity drops at the very moment when this domain fills entirely the plasma. Two regimes have to be distinguished. In the regimes of low laser intensity, strong sub-harmonic generation of the excited IAW is observed to take place in this moving spatial domain, so that the SBS reflectivity drop is interpreted as being due to sub-harmonic generation. In the opposite regime of high laser intensity, there is no evidence of strong sub-harmonic generation, whereas a strong ion heating is observed, so that the reflectivity drop is interpreted as being due to enhanced ion damping. In the 1D simulations the electron kinetic effects are found to be able to smooth temporally the SBS reflectivity, although the overall picture remains the same when the electrons are taken as a Boltzmann fluid. In the 2D simulations, the SBS reflectivity is observed to drop rapidly in time because of the efficient nonlinear Landau damping on the ions, as previously reported by Cohen et al. [1]. In these 2D simulations, the electron kinetic effects are found to play a negligible role as compared with the ion kinetic effects.