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Induced scattering of strong waves in pair plasmas

Masanori Iwamoto1,2,* and Kunihito Ioka2

  • *Contact author: m-iwamoto@people.kobe-u.ac.jp
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 063022 – Published 10 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/9yxj-c8fr

Abstract

We study induced (stimulated) scattering of linearly polarized, strong electromagnetic waves in pair plasmas, which is crucial for understanding the propagation of fast radio bursts (FRBs). Magnetars are the most promising progenitors of FRBs, and FRBs propagate through the magnetar wind and successfully escape before being significantly scattered. We revisit the steady-state solution of linearly polarized electromagnetic waves in pair plasmas with arbitrary amplitude, and demonstrate that the nonlinearity is characterized by the nonlinearity parameter a0ωpe/ω0 rather than the dimensionless amplitude a0, where ωpe is the electron plasma frequency and ω0 is the wave frequency in the frame in which the plasma is at rest when the wave fields vanish. We follow the time evolution of the steady-state solution for the linear regime a0ωpe/ω0≪1 by performing one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, and show that the conventional linear analysis of induced scattering assuming a0≪1 is applicable even for a0>1 when the Lorentz boost due to the plasma motion in the incident wave is considered. The saturation level is controlled by a0ω0/ωpe, which corresponds to the ratio of the wave energy to the plasma energy, and the incident wave is hardly scattered for a0ω0/ωpe≫1. We discuss the application of our results to FRBs.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 063022– Published 10 September, 2026
  • Received 17 April 2026
  • Accepted 13 August 2026
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