Heated electron distributions from resonant absorption

A simplified model of resonant absorption of obliquely incident laser light has been developed. Using a 1.5 dimensional electrostatic simulation computer code, it is shown that the inclusion of ion motion is critically important in determining the heated electron distributions from resonant absorption. The electromagnetic wave drives up an electron plasma wave. For long density scale lengths (L≃103λDe), the phase velocity of this wave is very large (ω/k≳10Vth) so that if heating does occur, a suprathermal tail of very energetic electrons is produced. However, the pressure due to this wave steepens the density profile until the density gradient scale length near the critical density (where the local plasma frequency equals the laser frequency) is of order 20λDe. The electrostatic wave is thus forced to have a much lower phase velocity (ω/k≃2.5Vth). In this case, more electrons are heated to much lower velocities. The heated electron distributions are exponential in velocity space. Using a simple theory it is shown that this property of profile steepening applies to most of a typical laser fusion pulse. This steepening raises the threshold for parametric instabilities near the critical surface. Thus, the extensive suprathermal electron distributions typically produced by these parametric instabilities can be drastically reduced.