NONLOCAL ELECTRON-TRANSPORT IN THE PRESENCE OF HIGH-INTENSITY LASER IRRADIATION

We investigate electron transport in a plasma heated by spatially modulated laser irradiation. When the heating rate is greater than the electron-electron collision rate, the thermal conductivity is reduced by a factor of 3 to 4 from the Spitzer-Harm [Phys. Rev. 89, 977 (1953)] value for Klambda(e) <0.01 and is less affected by nonlocal heat-transport effects for k lambda(e) >> 1, where lambda(e) is the electron mean free path and k is the perturbation wave number. Implications for thermal filamentation will be discussed.