A new method for shockless compression and acceleration of solid materials is presented. A plasma reservoir pressurized by a laser-driven shock unloads across a vacuum gap and piles up against an Al sample thus providing the drive. The rear surface velocity of the Al was measured with a line VISAR, and used to infer load histories. These peaked between approximately 0.14 and 0.5 Mbar with strain rates approximately 10(6)-10(8) s(-1). Detailed simulations suggest that apart from surface layers the samples can remain close to the room temperature isentrope. The experiments, analysis, and future prospects are discussed.
Experiments conducted on the Omega laser [T. R. Boehly et al., Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)] and simulations show reduced Richtmyer–Meshkov growth rates in a strongly shocked system with initial amplitudes kη0⩽0.9. The growth rate at early time is less than half the impulsive model prediction, rising at later time to near the impulsive prediction. An analytical model that accounts for shock proximity agrees with the results.
A desire to interpret recent experiments on filamentation with and without beam-smoothing techniques led to the development of a three-dimensional fluid model that includes the effects of nonlocal electron transport and kinetic ion damping of the acoustic waves. The damping of the electron-temperature perturbations that drive thermal filamentation by nonlocal electron conduction, valid in the diffusive limit, is supplemented in the present model by electron Landau damping in the collisionless limit when the wavelength of the perturbation is much less than the electron–ion scattering mean-free path. In this collisionless limit, Landau damping of the ‘‘temperature’’ fluctuations makes ponderomotive forces universally more important than thermal forces. Simulations in plasmas of current interest illustrate the relative importance of thermal and ponderomotive forces for strongly modulated laser beams. Although thermal forces may initiate filamentation, the most intense filaments are associated with ponderomotive forces. The present simulations of filamentation model well the density perturbations observed in experiments [Young et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 2336 (1988)]. In addition, a simple criterion is obtained analytically and supported by simulations for stabilization of filamentation by laser beam-smoothing techniques such as induced spatial incoherence and random phase plates [Eq. (1)].
Supersonic fluid flow and the interaction of strong shock waves to produce jets of material are ubiquitous features of inertial confinement fusion ͑ICF͒, astrophysics, and other fields of high energy-density science. The availability of large laser systems provides an opportunity to investigate such hydrodynamic systems in the laboratory, and to test their modeling by radiation hydrocodes. We describe experiments to investigate the propagation of a structured shock front within a radiation-driven target assembly, the formation of a supersonic jet of material, and the subsequent interaction of this jet with an ambient medium in which a second, ablatively driven shock wave is propagating. The density distribution within the jet, the Kelvin-Helmholz roll-up at the tip of the jet, and the jet's interaction with the counterpropagating shock are investigated by x-ray backlighting. The experiments were designed and modeled using radiation hydrocodes developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory, AWE, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The same hydrocodes are being used to model a large number of other ICF and high energy-density physics experiments. Excellent agreement between the different simulations and the experimental data is obtained, but only when the full geometry of the experiment, including both laser-heated hohlraum targets ͑driving the jet and counter-propagating shock͒, is included. The experiments were carried out at the University of Rochester's Omega laser ͓J. M. Soures et al., Phys. Plasmas 3, 2108 ͑1996͔͒.
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