Integrated proton fast ignition experiment at OMEGA

After the demonstration of ignition at the National Ignition Facility, the quest to achieve higher gains to make fusion energy suitable for future power plants is renewed. One promising method to increase gain is to separate the compression and heating phases, referred to as Fast Ignition (FI). Heating by protons is particularly appealing because they are not prone to transport instabilities like electrons, can be focused using curved geometries, and can provide a high energy deposition rate. Although a series of experiments have shown the performance of proton focusing and heating, it remains unclear how the compression drive impacts proton acceleration and transport. We report here the first results of a proton-FI-relevant integrated experiment on OMEGA. Protons are accelerated and focused by the EP beam (~700 J, 10 ps) interacting with a curved foil and then guided by a cone to a Cu-doped CH spherical capsule imploded by 54 UV beams (~18 kJ). Radiation-hydrodynamics and hybrid-PIC simulations will be compared with data from the experiment, hinting at a preserved proton acceleration in the presence of compression. Finally, plans for the next experiment in 2025 will be discussed.