Quenching of the nonlocal electron heat transport by large external magnetic fields in a laser-produced plasma measured with imaging thomson scattering

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Mar 30;98(13):135001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.135001. Epub 2007 Mar 29.

Abstract

We present a direct measurement of the quenching of nonlocal heat transport in a laser-produced plasma by applying large external magnetic fields (>10 T). The temporally resolved Thomson-scattering measurements of the electron temperature profile show that the heat front propagation transverse to a high-power laser beam is slowed resulting in extremely strong local heating. We find agreement with hydrodynamic modeling when including a magnetic field model that self-consistently evolves the fields in the plasma.