SPATIAL CHAOS AND PATTERNS IN LASER-PRODUCED PLASMAS

Spatial chaos and patterns of laser beams in plasmas are investigated in terms of a saturable nonlinear Schrodinger equation, theoretically and numerically. The linear analysis shows that the homoclinic orbit c rossings may exist in phase space, which is also verified in our numer ical experiments. In particular, current research illustrates that the spatial chaos and complicated patterns of light wave interacting with plasmas arise from the high order saturable nonlinear effects. The co mplicated patterns are associated with the stochastic partition of ene rgy contained in Fourier modes. In addition, some physical significanc e for our work has been discussed.