Abstract. The three-dimensional evolution of a short laser pulse is considered. The linear stability analysis that takes account of the scattered light convection and predicts a development of pulse modulation at the electron plasma frequency, is carried out. It is demonstrated that a laser pulse with a power above or close to the critical, which is required to provide a pulse relativistic self-focusing, undergoes compression and self-modulation in the course of self-consistent pulse evolution and, as a result, resonant excitation of an extremely strong plasma wave occurs. It is shown that for a properly taken initial pulse and plasma parameters it is possible to obtain a wake field of an extremely high intensity for a fairly long time to provide a new promising outlook for the laser accelerator concept. The influence of plasma inhomogeneity and pulse initial focusing on the considered self-resonant plasma wave excitation is studied.

Print publication: Issue 1 (1994)
Received 17 July 1993