Nonlinear inverse bremsstrahlung absorption and nonextensive thermostatistics

We show that recent experimental data exhibiting a non-Maxwellian electron velocity distribution resulting from inverse bremsstrahlung absorption in plasma, can be satisfactorily fitted by a statistical distribution that emerges naturally from a nonextensive thermostatistical formalism that focuses situations where long-range forces (like the unscreened Coulombian ones) are present. This comparison shows that a power-law distribution for the electron velocity can describe the data as equally well as the flat-topped one used in the literature. Although the agreement with the experimental results is quite satisfactory, more sophisticated experiments would be necessary in order to point, without any doubt, to the real distribution. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.