Nonlinear Inverse Bremsstrahlung and Heated-Electron Distributions

When $\frac{Z{{v}_{0}}^{2}}{{{v}_{e}}^{2}}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}1$, inverse bremsstrahlung results in a non-Maxwellian velocity distribution for which the absorption is reduced by up to a factor of 2 compared with the Maxwellian distribution usually assumed. Transport and atomic processes are also altered. Especially in materials with $Z\ensuremath{\gg}1$, this is significant at lower intensities than for the well-known nonlinearity for which the measure is $\frac{{{v}_{0}}^{2}}{{{v}_{e}}^{2}}$.