Study of Thermal Transport in Low-Beta Laser-Produced Plasmas*

Collective Thomson-scattering experiments were used at the Omega Laser Facility to measure the heat-wave propagation in plasmas where an external magnetic field was scaled to 36 T in a 2-mm-diam gas-jet plasma. At the highest fields, the magnetic-field pressure was equal to the plasma pressure ($\beta \approx $ 1). These results are being used to study the limitations of thermal-transport models used in current hydrodynamic codes. Initial experimental and simulation results will be presented.