The ion kinetic structure of a planar collisional shock front in a fully ionized plasma is investigated using a new Vlasov-Fokker-Planck code. The effects of ionic viscosity and ionic thermal conduction are found to be much larger than assumed in usual hydrodynamic plasma simulations with classical transport coefficients. This might have consequences on the numerical modeling of inertial-confinement fusion targets.

• Received 14 March 1991

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.67.2143