Heating of a collisionless turbulent plasma by multiphoton absorption

The heating of electrons in the stochastic electric field of a collisionless turbulent plasma by the multiphoton absorption of a laser beam is described from a quantum-mechanical viewpoint. A kinetic equation is derived and the change in kinetic energy of the electrons is calculated. The effective interaction frequency is found and compared to the effective collision frequency of multiphoton inverse bremsstrahlung for the strong laser beam. It is found that the rate of energy absorption is proportional to the inverse square root of the intensity of the laser beam and the average of the square of the turbulent electric field when the laser frequency is approximately equal to the electron plasma frequency