[en] Investigations of SRS and hot electron production as observed in the laboratory are discussed along with some computer modeling of these processes. Since the plasma was preformed with n everywhere less than 1/4 n/sub c/, a situation generally much different from laser produced plasmas, it was possible to observe hot electrons generated exclusively by the SRS process, a situation rare among SRS experiments. Using 10.6 μm radiation from a pulsed CO₂ laser, suprathermal electron distributions have been directly detected which have Maxwellian shapes and corresponding temperatures from 29 to 105 keV. A temporal correlation between the fast electron pulses and the back-scattered SRS radiation was also seen