Experimental Design for Studying the Effect of Nonlocal Heat Transfer in Plasma

An experimental design is proposed for studying a thermal wave that occurs in plasma under large electron temperature gradients, when the proportionality between the heat flux and the temperature gradient is violated. The heat flux becomes nonlocal under these conditions, i.e., it depends on the distribution of plasma parameters in a certain volume. Existing models for describing heat flux give conflicting predictions for some problems, so a more accessible experimental setup is needed for studying heat transfer in the laboratory and verifying numerical codes. The experimental setup proposed in this work minimizes the influence of hot electrons of another nature and distinguishes between radiative preheating. The effect under study is important in the development of certain laser thermonuclear fusion schemes, as well as in experiments with a significant energy input into the plasma.