We present particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of laser plasma instabilities (LPIs) with a laser pulse duration of a few picoseconds. The simulation parameters are appropriate to the planar-target LPI experimental conditions on SG-II. In this regime, the plasmas are characterized by a long electron density scale length and a large electron density range. It is found that when the incident laser intensity is well above its backward stimulated Raman scattering (backward SRS, BSRS) threshold, the backscattered light via the primary BSRS is intense enough to excite secondary SRS (Re-SRS) in the region below one-ninth of the critical density of the incident laser. The daughter light wave via the secondary BSRS (Re-BSRS) is amplified as it propagates toward the higher-density region in the bath of broadband light generated through the primary BSRS process. A higher intensity of the incident laser not only increases the amplitude of the BSRS light but also increases the convective amplification lengths of the Re-BSRS modes by broadening the spectrum of the BSRS light. Convective amplification of Re-BSRS causes pump depletion of the primary BSRS light and may lead to an underestimate of the primary BSRS level in SP-LPI experiments. A significant fraction of the generation of energetic electrons is strongly correlated with the Re-BSRS modes and should be considered as a significant energy loss.

The stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm is widely used in wavefront sensor-less adaptive optics (WSAO) systems. However, the convergence is relatively slow. Modal-based algorithms usually provide much faster convergence than SPGD; however, the limited actuator stroke of the deformable mirror (DM) often prohibits the sensing of higher-order modes or renders a closed-loop correction inapplicable. Based on a comparative analysis of SPGD and the DM-modal-based algorithm, a hybrid approach involving both algorithms is proposed for extended image-based WSAO, and is demonstrated in this experiment. The hybrid approach can achieve similar correction results to pure SPGD, but with a dramatically decreased iteration number.