Exact solution of an electron kinetic equation for a strongly nonisothermal two-component plasma.

Abstract

In the experiments on powerful femtosecond laser pulses interacting with matter, strongly nonisothermal plasmas can be generated [H. M. Milchberg, R. R. Freeman, S. C. Davey, and R. M. Moore, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 2364 (1988)]. In the present paper it is shown that if electron and ion temperatures of plasmas satisfy the inequality [ital T][sub [ital e]][much gt][ital T][sub [ital i]], the kinetic equation for the electron distribution function taking into account electron-ion collisions as well as electron-electron collisions can be solved exactly analytically. It is another example of the existence of an analytic solution of a kinetic equation in addition to the well-known case of the Lorentz model.