Two-Dimensional Nonlocal Electron Transport in Laser-Produced Plasmas

Abstract
A two-dimensional Fokker-Planck code SPARK has been constructed to study the process of nonlocal thermal smoothing in planar laser-produced plasmas with no ion motion. The results from SPARK are compared with those from a standard fluid code with flux-limited Spitzer-Härm conductivity. It is found that even when the one-dimensional transport is well modeled by fluid theory the thermal smoothing arising from nonuniform laser energy deposition may be severely overestimated for scale-length modulations shorter than about 80 electron mean free paths.