Anisotropic Filamentation of Linearly Polarized Ultra Intense Laser in Overdense Plasmas

Abstract

Anomalous propagation of a linearly-polarized ultra intense laser in an overdense plasma is studied with the use of three-dimensional PIC code. It is shown that a linearly-polarized laser light breaks into anisotropic filaments with a size of collisionless relativistic skin depth perpendicular to the polarization direction. Strong modulational instability is also shown. The dependence of the filamentation and modulational instabilities on laser intensity and plasma density is discussed.