Measurements of stimulated Raman scattering from magnetically confined underdense plasmas

Abstract
Experimental measurements of stimulated Raman scattering of intense CO2 laser radiation from magnetically confined, underdense hydrogen plasmas are reported. The backscatter has a nonlinear intensity dependence as predicted by theory. The spectral structure is seen to consist of several apparent resonances as opposed to the single resonance of the simple theory. A possible explanation of this fine structure in terms of the physical effect of a density gradient is discussed.