Simulation of stimulated Brillouin scattering and stimulated Raman scattering in shock ignition

We study stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in shock ignition by comparing fluid and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Under typical parameters for the OMEGA experiments [Theobald et al., Phys. Plasmas 19, 102706 (2012)], a series of 1D fluid simulations with laser intensities ranging between 2 x 10(15) and 2 x 10(16) W/cm(2) finds that SBS is the dominant instability, which increases significantly with the incident intensity. Strong pump depletion caused by SBS and SRS limits the transmitted intensity at the 0.17n(c) to be less than 3.5 x 10(15) W/cm(2). The PIC simulations show similar physics but with higher saturation levels for SBS and SRS convective modes and stronger pump depletion due to higher seed levels for the electromagnetic fields in PIC codes. Plasma flow profiles are found to be important in proper modeling of SBS and limiting its reflectivity in both the fluid and PIC simulations. (c) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.