Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 June 2010
In this paper, we continue the study of the Raman amplification in plasmas that we initiated in [Colin and Colin, Diff. Int. Eqs.17 (2004) 297–330; Colin and Colin, J. Comput. Appl. Math.193 (2006) 535–562]. We point out that the Raman instability gives rise to three components. The first one is collinear to the incident laser pulse and counter propagates. In 2-D, the two other ones make a non-zero angle with the initial pulse and propagate forward. Furthermore they are symmetric with respect to the direction of propagation of the incident pulse. We construct a non-linear system taking into account all these components and perform some 2-D numerical simulations.