Effect of electron collisions on transport coefficients induced by the inverse bremsstrahlung absorption in plasmas -: art. no. 032308

The transport coefficients of fully ionized plasmas under the influence of a high-frequency electric field are derived solving numerically the electron Fokker-Planck equation using a perturbation method, parametrized as a function of the electron mean-free-path lambda(ei) compared to the spatial scales L. The isotropic and anisotropic contributions of the inverse bremsstrahlung heating are considered. Electron-electron collision terms are kept in the analysis, which allows us to consider with sufficient accuracy to describe plasmas with arbitrary atomic number Z. Practical numerical fits of the transport coefficients are proposed as functions of Z and the collisionality parameter lambda(ei)/L. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.