Breakdown experiments in superhigh-pressure gases 1 irradiated by a focused Q-switched laser show a dependence of threshold electric field versus initial gas pressure in the rather large interval of 20 to 2000 atm. These curves present electric-field minima, which approximately agree with the values predicted by the wellknown theory of electron-impact ionization. In other kinds of experiments performed on laserproduced plasmas, 2 it has been shown that local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) conditions may be approximately attained in time intervals as short as the laser-pulse duration (-65-nsec half-width), working at energy density levels of 1000 J/cm 2 (power density ^1.5xl0 10 W/cm 2 ). Measurements made at that laser energy density show that the plasma electron temperature, the gas temperature, and the blackbody radiation temperature converge to the same limit.This Letter presents a theoretical analysis, attempting to define a unique local temperature T for electrons, ions, neutrals, and radiation, and to deduce a relation between threshold breakdown power, temperature, and pressure that may account for the experimental curves. 1 Different mechanisms have been proposed to explain the gas heating: the radiation-supported shock-wave process 3 ' 4 ; the traveling ionization-15 H. R. Schlossberg and A. Javan, Phys. Rev. 150, 267 (1966). 16 M. S. Feld and A. Javan, Phys. Rev. 177, 540 (1969).