Laser energy deposition in quiescent air has been studied experimentally and numerically. The study is focused on the gasdynamic effects of the laser energy spot on the ow structure. A Gaussian pro le for initial temperature distribution is proposed to model the energy spot assuming the density is initially uniform. A ltered Rayleigh scattering technique has been used for obtaining the experimental results. These consisted of ow visualization of the blast wave, and simultaneous pressure, temperature, and velocity measurements. Good agreement has been achieved between numerical and experimental results for shock radius vs time. The comparison of computed and experimental density, pressure, temperature, and velocity outside the laser spot show good agreement as well. Nomenclature a 1 = ambient speed of sound B = optics calibration constant C = constant dark level O k 0 = observed light wave unit vector O k L = incident light wave unit vector l .º/ = laser spectral distribution Mo = molecular mass M s = shock Mach number Pr = Prandtl number p = pressure Q = optics calibration constant R = gas constant R 0= focal radius r = Rayleigh scattering (RS) distribution, radius r 0 = radius S = the grayscale value collected at a particular pixel of the image T = temperature t .º/ = absorption pro le V = ow velocity vector V 0 = focal volume V s = shock velocity x = nondimensional frequency in RS y = ratio of collisional frequency to the acoustic spatial frequency in RS ® R = Rosseland mean absorption coef cient 1T = temperature variation due to energy addition 1T 0 = peak temperature variation due to energy addition 1º D = Doppler shift ² = absorption coef cient · = constant thermal conductivity = wavelength of incident light ¹ = dynamic viscosity º = frequency º 0 = incoming light frequency ½ = density ¾ s = Stefan-Boltzmann constant, 5:67 £ 10 ¡8 W/K 4 m 2 µ = angle between the incident and scattered wave vectors Subscript