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Two collinear laser beams propagating through a rippled density plasma, with their frequency difference close to plasma frequency, resonantly excite a large amplitude plasma wave. The density ripple of suitable wavenumber slows down the plasma wave very significantly, leading to strong electron heating via the Landau damping of the plasma wave. An analytical framework of the process is developed and the electron temperature scaling with plasma density, laser power and laser frequency have been obtained. Its relevance to recent experiments on intense short pulse laser plasma interaction has been discussed.

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