Thermal conductivity of a laser plasma.

We present a model of the electron thermal conductivity of a laser-produced plasma. The model, supported by Vlasov-Fokker-Planck simulations, predicts that laser absorption reduces conductivity by forcing electrons out of a Maxwell-Boltzmann equilibrium, which results in the depletion of both low-velocity bulk electrons and high-velocity tail electrons. We show that both the bulk and tail electrons approximately follow super-Gaussian distributions, but with distinct exponents that each depend on the laser intensity and wavelength through the parameter α=Zv_{E}^{2}/v_{T}^{2}.