Theory and simulation of resonant absorption in a hot plasma

A detailed theoretical and simulation study of resonant absorption in a hot plasma is presented which isolates the behavior of the plasma for times short compared to an ion response time. The extent to which an electron fluid model can describe the absorption process in the kinetic regime is discussed. At high intensities the absorbed energy is observed to be deposited in a suprathermal tail of electrons whose energy varies approximately as the square root of the incident power. The density profile modification due to the ion response to the pondermotive force is also discussed.