The paper proposes an experimental design for studying the thermal wave that occurs in plasma at large electron temperature gradients, when the proportionality between the heat flux and the temperature gradient is violated. Under these conditions, the heat flux becomes nonlocal, i.e. it depends on the distribution of plasma parameters in a certain volume around it. The existing set of heat flux models gives contradictory predictions for some problems, so a simple experimental setup is required to study heat transfer in the laboratory and verify numerical codes. The experimental setup proposed in the paper allows one to minimize the influence of hot electrons of a different nature, as well as to distinguish preheating by radiation. The effect under study is important in the development of some laser thermonuclear fusion schemes, as well as in experiments with significant energy input into plasma.
Glazyrin et al. (Wed,) studied this question.