Characterizing and Synthesizing MMI Data Using 3D Geometrical Ray Tracing

Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) is one method used to obtain controlled thermonuclear burn through either direct or indirect ablation of a millimeter-scale capsule with the use of high-power lasers. Although there have been large strides made in understanding the physics involved in order to create reliable physics models and codes, simulations and experiments still show discrepancies. A factor in this mismatch is the asymmetry of the implosions that occur experimentally. The multi-monochromatic X-ray imager (MMI) is an instrument which gives spatially, spectrally, and temporally resolved arrays of narrow-band x-ray images which can be used to extract temperature, density, and mixing spatial profiles. To understand the full potential and limitations of the instrument a three-dimensional geometrical ray tracing code has been created. By integrating the ray tracing code with an atomic and radiation transport model we can create the most accurate synthetic MMI data to date to compare experiment and simulation. Results are discussed obtained from the post-processing of implosion simulations produced with the radiation-hydrodynamics Rage code including inline the BHR mixing package.