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Localized heating of a gas by intense laser pulses leads to interestingacoustic, hydrodynamic and optical effects with numerous applications inscience and technology, including controlled wave guiding and remote atmospheresensing. Rotational excitation of molecules can serve as the energy source forraising the gas temperature. Here, we study the dynamics of energy transferfrom the molecular rotation to heat. By optically imaging a cloud of molecularsuperrotors, created with an optical centrifuge, we experimentally identify twoseparate and qualitatively different stages of its evolution. The firstnon-equilibrium "gyroscopic" stage is characterized by the modified opticalproperties of the centrifuged gas - its refractive index and opticalbirefringence, owing to the ultrafast directional molecular rotation, whichsurvives tens of collisions. The loss of rotational directionality is found tooverlap with the release of rotational energy to heat, which triggers thesecond stage of thermal expansion. The crossover between anisotropic rotationaland isotropic thermal regimes is in agreement with recent theoreticalpredictions and our hydrodynamic calculations.

From gyroscopic to thermal motion: a crossover in the dynamics of molecular superrotors