The intense thermal energy flux emanating from the critical layer in laser-produced plasmas is shown to generate an instability that derives from the magnetic field dependence of the thermal conductivity. This implies that B fields, with their attendant nonuniform heating effects, will occur even in uniformly irradiated spherical pellets or plane slabs. These fields may play a role in attempts to compress pellets for fusion, for example, by being partially trapped and amplified by compression in the interior of a pellet.

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A general technique is given for calculating the spectrum of plasma waves emitted upstream and downstream by a turbulent shock transition for a plane shock of arbitrary structure. The problem of identifying the waves of frequency ∼1 cps that sometimes appear to emanate from the earth's bow shock is discussed.

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