KINETIC DESCRIPTION OF PLASMAS PRODUCED IN MULTIPHOTON-IONIZATION PROCESSES

A kinetic description of inhomogeneous plasmas produced by irradiating an atomic gas by a well-focused ultrashort high-intensity laser pulse is presented. The Vlasov-Maxwell equation is integrated by representing the distribution function f (r, v; t) in the form f0(Dr - Bv, -Cr + Av), with f0 the initial distribution and the A, B, C, D functions depending on r, v, and t. On the basis of this representation the evolution of some charge distributions is examined, by focusing the attention on the transport of ion packets, the effect of the ponderomotive potential, and the capture of electrons by the ion potential well.