Exploring the Cosmos on the Sandia Z Accelerator

The Sandia Z Accelerator is one of the flagship high energy density facilities operated for the National Nuclear Security Administration. Over the past few decades interdisciplinary teams at Sandia have been refining several mature, robust, and precise platforms on Z for material dynamics, radiation effects, and inertial confinement fusion experiments. These platforms are also capable of generating and diagnosing states relevant to a variety of astrophysical phenomena as well as states relevant to planetary interiors. This presentation provides an overview of some of these platforms, recent results, and a description of the Z Fundamental Science Program which provides opportunities for academic collaborators to engage in the exciting work going on in these areas as well as to propose new ideas for research in the emerging field of laboratory astrophysics. SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA0003525.