Instability of a laser beam with a negative detuning in a resonant medium
Gaidarenko D. V., Leonov A. G., Panteleev A. A., Roslyakov V. A., Starostin A. N., Chekhov D. I.
The instability of a laser beam with a negative detuning (Αω = mL — ω0 < 0) in a resonant medium has been studied experimentally. The beam intensity ranged up to 107 W/cm2; the resonant medium was sodium vapor with a density of 1014-1016 cm-3; and the detuning was with respect to the Z>, line of Na. Observations reveal that the scattering contains cone radiation, that scattering components with a frequency shifted from the laser frequency are generated, and that filaments form. This picture of the scattering is similar in many regards to the scattering in the case Δω > 0, which has been studied thoroughly in previous work. The results are compared with theoretical predictions.