Self-focusing of circularly polarized laser pulse in the hot magnetized plasma in the quasi-neutral limit

In this paper the problem of self-focusing of an intense laser beam in the hot magnetized plasma is studied. Using a relativistic two-fluid model, the propagation of intense circularly polarized laser beam along the external magnetic field is considered. The nonlinear equation describing the interaction of laser beam with magnetized hot plasma in the quasi-neutral approximation is derived. Expanding the nonlinear terms of current density and saving only the parabolic nonlinear terms, we investigated the self-focusing phenomenon for right-and left-hand circularly polarized laser beam. The evolution of laser beam spot size with Gaussian profile for both polarizations is considered and the effect of the temperature and external magnetic field on the self-focusing quality is studied. It is shown that for the right-hand polarization, the effect of temperature and external magnetic field on the self-focusing property is more considerable. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4766753]