Suppression of power losses during EM pulse propagation in underdense plasma slab

Maximizing the power propagation of intense electromagnetic waves through an underdense uniform plasma slab underlies many important applications, including laser-based particle acceleration, radiation sources, and plasma-based amplifiers. For current state-of-the-art terawatt lasers, significant loss mechanisms in plasma include Forward Raman Scattering and the self-modulational instability. Using 2D PIC simulations with the code EPOCH, we characterize these loss mechanisms and investigate various means to suppress undesirable laser scattering.