Suprathermal electron transport in laser-produced plasmas

A self-consistent, collisional, particle-in-cell scheme has been developed to model the one dimensional transport of suprathermal electrons in laser produced plasmas. This full Monte Carlo approach was taken, since earlier, simpler models have failed to explain an experimentally almost universal anomalous inhibition of thermal transport. The Monte Carlo scheme allows for free-streaming, ion scatter, and self thermalization of the electrons, which are moved in self-consistent E-fields computed with the aid of implicit fluid moments. PIC hydrodynamics for the ions, ponderomotive forces, and resonance and inverse-bremsstrahlung absorption of the light are all accommodated. In application to the anomalous inhibition problem, use of the scheme demonstrates that intrinsic differences in the Monte Carlo, and conventional flux-limited diffusion modelling of the transport results in apparent and real inhibition, explaining the need for strong flux-limiting in the simpler diffusion modelling of experiments