Filamentation instability of electromagnetic waves in a magnetized plasma

The filamentation instability of an arbitrarily - large amplitude electromagnetic wave propagating along an external magnetic field is investigated for three types of plasma slow responses. Non-linearities associated with the relativistic electron mass variation and the relativistic ponderomotive force are included, and the effect of the confining magnetic field on the instabilities corresponding to the three different types of interaction is examined. (orig.)