Competition Between Stimulated Brillouin and Rayleigh Scattering in Absorbing Media

Rayleigh scattering is the dominating stimulated scattering process when the absorption coefficient of the medium exceeds a critical value ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{cr}}$. It is found that the transient gain of Rayleigh scattering is important for the competition with stimulated Brillouin scattering. The initial slope- not the peak power- of the incident laser pulse determines the value of ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{cr}}$. Our findings are in full agreement with theoretical investigations.