Influence of Collisional Effects on Ion-Acoustic Wave Properties in Non-Maxwellian Laser-Driven Plasmas

Collisional effects significantly influence inertial confinement fusion hohlraum plasmas, where non-Maxwellian inverse bremsstrahlung heating and collision-induced anisotropy alter the kinetic plasma response. We derived the linear ion-acoustic wave (IAW) dispersion relation, revealing the necessity of accounting for binary collisions in both the isotropic and anisotropic parts of the electron distribution function, as well as in the anisotropic part of the light ion distribution function. This affects the IAW damping rate, either increasing or decreasing it depending on laser parameters and plasma composition. Our analytical model, validated against particle-in-cell simulations for single- and two-ion species plasmas, offers crucial insights for high-energy laser-driven implosion experiments. It can be applied to Thomson scattering analysis and integrated into wave mixing processes involving IAWs, such as cross-beam energy transfer and Brillouin scattering.