Nonlinear evolution of stimulated Raman scattering in homogeneous plasmas

A model for stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in a homogeneous plasma has been designed to account for the presence of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and the nonlinear coupling between Langmuir and ion waves described by Zakharov equations. The nonlinear evolution of electron plasma waves also includes an effective damping resulting from electron diffusion in localized Langmuir fields produced during simultaneous SRS and SBS evolutions. Numerical results based on this model show two distinct SRS behaviors. Close to ncr/4 the Langmuir collapse dominates nonlinear evolution of the instability. At lower densities low level SRS is observed for a relatively long time after which SRS is terminated as a result of ion fluctuations produced by SBS. In addition, the anomalous absorption of backscattered SRS radiation by ion fluctuations produced by the collapse is proposed as a mechanism that may explain some recent experimental observations showing a gap in the SRS spectrum.