New regimes of high energy density science on the National Ignition Facility

Results from NIF Discovery Science will be presented. Examples include nuclear reactions relevant to stellar nucleosynthesis. [1] Equations of state at extreme pressures relevant to planetary and exoplanet interiors are being measured. [2] Studies of Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities at high Reynolds number, relevant to supernova explosions, are being studied. [3, 4] Experiments to study magnetic reconnection at HED conditions have been done. [5] High velocity, low density interpenetrating plasmas that generate collisionless astrophysical shocks, magnetic fields, and that accelerate particles relevant to cosmic ray sources are also being studied. [6] NIF experiments have demonstrated strong suppression of heat conduction in a replica of galaxy-cluster turbulent plasmas. [7]. Experiments relevant to turbulent star formation dynamics are underway on NIF. [8, 9] And relativistically hot plasmas are being generated and studied on the NIF ARC laser. [10]



[1] D.T. Casey, Frontiers in Physics (2023).

[2] T. Döppner, Nature (2023).

[3] J.P. Sauppe, PRL (2020).

[4] S.R. Nagel, PoP (2017), PoP (2022)

[5] V.V. Valenzuela, PoP (2024).

[6] F. Fiuza, Nat. Phys. (2020).

[7] J. Meinecke, Sci. Advances (2022).

[8] S. Davidovits, PRE (2022).

[9] S. Dhawalikar, MNRAS (2022).

[10] G.J. Williams, PRE (2021).