Guiding Supersonic Projectiles Using Optically Generated Air Density Channels

J. Appl. Phys. 118, 123301 (2015)https://ireap.umd.edu/10.1063/1.49311442015Journal ArticlePlasma, Accelerator, and Nuclear Physics

We investigate the feasibility of using optically generated channels of reduced air density to provide trajectory correction (guiding) for a supersonic projectile. It is shown that the projectile experiences a force perpendicular to its direction of motion as one side of the projectile passes through a channel of reduced air density. A single channel of reduced air density can be generated by the energy deposited from filamentation of an intense laser pulse. We propose changing the laser pulse energy from shot-to-shot to build longer effective channels. Current femtosecond laser systems with multi-millijoule pulses could provide trajectory correction of several meters on 5 km trajectories for sub-kilogram projectiles traveling at Mach 3.