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Published on: August 25, 2016
Impact of super-Gaussian electron distributions on plasma K-shell emission
H P Le1, E V Marley1, H A Scott1
1Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA.
None:
Electron distributions in laser-produced plasmas will be driven toward a super-Gaussian distribution due to inverse bremsstrahlung absorption [Langdon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 44, 575 (1980)10.1103/PhysRevLett.44.575]. Both theoretical and experimental evidence suggest that fundamental plasma properties are altered by the super-Gaussian distribution. This paper examines how the super-Gaussian distribution affects the ionization balance and K-shell emission of atomic plasmas, utilizing approximate formulas and detailed collisional-radiative simulations. While the impact on plasma ionization is small, K-shell spectra can be significantly modified. Based on these findings, we demonstrate that K-shell spectroscopy can be used to infer super-Gaussian or other similar nonequilibrium electron distributions.
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