Measurements of shock-front structure in multi-species plasmas on OMEGA

ORAL

Abstract

The structure of a shock front in a plasma with multiple ion species is measured for the first time in experiments on the OMEGA laser. Thomson scattering of a 263.25~nm probe beam is used to diagnose electron density, electron and ion temperature, ion species concentration, and flow velocity in strong shocks ($M \sim 5$) propagating through low-density ($\rho \sim 0.1$~mg/cc) plasmas composed of H(98\%)+Ne(2\%) and H(98\%)+C(2\%). Separation of the ion species within the shock front is inferred. Although shocks play an important role in ICF and astrophysical plasmas, the intrinsically kinetic nature of the shock front indicates the need for experiments to benchmark hydrodynamic models. Comparison with PIC, Vlasov-Fokker-Planck, and multi-component hydrodynamic simulations will be presented.

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Authors

  • Hans G. Rinderknecht

    LLNL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • H. S. Park

    LLNL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab

  • Steven Ross

    LLNL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, llnl

  • Scott Wilks

    LLNL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, USA, llnl

  • Peter Amendt

    LLNL, Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, llnl

  • R. F. Heeter

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab, LLNL

  • J. Katz

    Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester

  • N. M. Hoffman

    LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory

  • Erik Vold

    Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos Natl Lab

  • William Taitano

    Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos Natl Lab

  • Andrei Simakov

    Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos Natl Lab, LANL

  • Luis Chac\'on

    Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos Natl Lab, LANL