Scaling of laser plasma instabilities in MagLIF preheat with applied magnetic field

Experiments were executed on the Omega laser to study laser-plasma instabilities (LPIs) in magnetized gas tubes relevant to preheat in MagLIF. The study of how LPI and associated loss mechanisms vary with applied magnetic fields and other key variables will inform efforts to scale MagLIF to higher performance and assess potential mitigation strategies. We present initial data from the experiments, which indicate significantly higher stimulated Brillouin backscatter levels in the and enhanced propagation in the deutreriumdeuterium gas with 40-T applied magnetic fields. The increased backscatter is possibly a result of reduced radial electron heat conduction leading to increased laser filamentation and whole-beam self-intensification.*



* Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by NTESS, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. DOE's NNSA under contract DE-NA-0003525.