Thermal Decay of an Infrared-Laser-Heated Arc Plasma

Abstract
A small region of a magnetically confined, fully ionized arc plasma of density 2 × 1016 cm3 and electron temperature of 1.3 to 1.7 eV is heated by 0.7 eV with pulsed CO2-laser energy. The measured thermal decay is accounted for by classical collisional diffusion along the magnetic field.