A magnetic field in a laser-irradiated plasma is shown to have an important effect on the resonant absorption of the laser radiation normally incident on the inhomogeneous plasma. For typical paramaters in laser-fusion experiments, the absorption coefficient is above 50% with $\alpha \equiv {\pi }^2{\left(\frac{{\omega }_c}{\omega }\right)}^2{\left(\frac{L\omega }{c}\right)}^{\frac{4}{3}}$ between 1.5 and 10 and a maximum of ∼ 70% is achieved for $\alpha =4\mathrm{}$.

• Received 19 May 1977

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.39.338