Initial imprint effect on dynamic mitigation of plasma instability

Abstract

We proposed a dynamic mitigation method for plasma instabilities based on a phase control to mitigate plasma instabilities and to smooth plasma non-uniformities [e.g., Phys. Plasmas, 19 (2012), 024503]. In plasmas, perturbation phase would be unknown in general, and instability growth rate is discussed. However, if the perturbation is introduced by, for example, an illumination non-uniformity of an input energy driver beam, the perturbation phase would be defined by the driver illumination non-uniformity itself. When the driver axis is controlled by its axis oscillation or wobbling motion, the perturbation phase would be known and controlled. By the superimposition of the growing phase-controlled perturbations, the overall plasma instability growth is mitigated. The dynamic mitigation method is effective to mitigate growths of various plasma instabilities. At the same time, it was found that the phase of the growing perturbations mitigated would be still defined by the initial imprint. In this paper, the initial imprint effect is focused on the dynamic mitigation mechanism in plasmas. The results in this paper demonstrate that the initial imprint effect is reduced by an appropriate pulse shaping of the oscillating or wobbling perturbation.