2-DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE POWER TRANSFER BETWEEN CROSSED LASER-BEAMS

The power transfer between crossed laser beams made possible by an ion -acoustic wave is studied. A simple formula is derived for the steady- state power transfer, which depends on two dimensionless parameters: t he ratio of the incident beam intensities and the normalized beamwidth . Numerical simulations show that the transient power transfer is larg er than the steady-state power transfer and usually oscillates in time . The convective depletion of the higher-frequency beam saturates the power transfer more quickly than the damping of the ion-acoustic wave. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.