Instability Versus Equilibrium Propagation of Laser Beam in Plasma

We obtain, for the first time, an analytic theory of the forward stimulated Brillouin scattering instability of a spatially and temporally incoherent laser beam, that controls the transition between statistical equilibrium and non-equilibrium (unstable) self-focusing regimes of beam propagation. The stability boundary may be used as a comprehensive guide for inertial confinement fusion designs. Well into the stable regime, an analytic expression for the angular diffusion coefficient is obtained, which provides an essential correction to a geometric optic approximation for beam propagation.