Guiding of intense laser pulse in uniform plasmas and preformed plasma channels

Guiding of laser pulse in uniform plasmas and preformed plasma channels is investigated. The self-guiding mechanisms for these two cases are quite different. It is found that an intense laser pulse can be steadily self-guided in underdense plasmas with nearly a constant spot size if the self-consistently generated electron cavity has a sufficiently steep density gradient at the edge. In a preformed plasma channel, however, laser guiding is maintained mainly by the balance between the light diffraction and focusing. The latter is induced by the wall plasmas which greatly reduce the local dielectric constant. It is shown that the self-guiding of a laser pulse in uniform plasmas requires tens of terawatts power, but those that are in preformed channels can be realized with only a terawatt power. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3496049]