Kinetic study of strong shock waves in fully ionized plasmas

Fully kinetic simulations are used in this work to study strong shock waves in fully ionized plasmas for charge state Z ranging from 1 to 18. The ion stress tensor amplitude agrees well with classical predictions within the compression layer; however, its spatial structure is noticeably shaped by nonlocal transport effects. The electron stress tensor remains significantly smaller than that of the ions for all values of Z considered. Ion overheating in the compression layer is observed to scale approximately linearly with Z. Both findings diverge from hydrodynamic models based on classical electron stress formulations. The electrons exhibit strong nonlocal behavior in the compression layer, with Knudsen numbers approaching unity for Z≥6.