Parametric instability of a relativistically strong electromagnetic wave.

The stability of a circularly polarized electromagnetic wave that is strong enough to make plasma electrons, but not ions, relativistic is studied. Small perturbations are considered which propagate parallel to the large-amplitude driver. A relativistically strong wave can be unstable on time scales as short as twice its own oscillation period, and decays into a forward-going plasma oscillation and either one or two electromagnetic waves. Ion motion introduces an additional instability which can be important at short perturbation wavelengths, where the driver would otherwise be stable. The unstable ion and electron modes both have potential for producing anomalously large acceleration of relativistic particles, as well as significant amounts of backscattered light. These effects may be important in two applications: (1) the use of intense lasers to heat or compress plasma, and (2) the plasma surrounding a pulsar, if the pulsar is losing energy by radiation of electromagnetic waves at its rotation frequency. Instability persists in the nonrelativistic regime, reducing to stimulated Raman scattering as a special case.