ABSTRACT
Transport processes play an essential role in laser-plasma interactions. The acceleration of shell targets for Inertial Confinement Fusion relies upon the efficient coupling to the solid surface of energy deposited by the laser. Electron transport is important in spreading energy uniformly around the solid surface. One of the major difficulties in any high intensity laser-plasma experiment is the non-uniformity in most laser beams. The chapter focuses on the one-dimensional problem of carrying energy from the sub-critical to the solid plasma, and considers the two-dimensional smoothing of energy deposition on the target surface and the effect of transport on filamentation. Although the Fokker-Planck equation gives a reasonably complete description of electron transport, the equation is non-linear and multi-dimensional and its full solution requires considerable computer resources. Since the Spitzer-Harm theory breaks down in ablating plasmas, the full Fokker-Planck equation must be solved non-linearly.
