Thermal filamentation instability in laser-produced plasma

Summary form only given. The theoretical study of the thermal filamentation instability in fully ionized plasmas is presented. The collisionless fluid model equations used, take into account the off-diagonal terms of the generalized stress tensor and the generalized heat flux corresponding mainly to the temperature anisotropy and convective thermal energy respectively. The non-stationary description of the thermal filamentation instability is carried out and the dispersion relation of the unstable light filaments is explicitly established. The numerical stability analysis of the electromagnetic modes shows that these additional terms decrease the growth rate of this instability in comparison with the previous results of the literature (Kaiser et al., 1994). The convective e-folding rate in inhomogeneous plasmas is derived by using the WKB method and the results obtained are then compared to those of current experiments.