Laboratory astroparticle physics

Abstract:

Laser-produced proton beams have been used to achieve ultrafast volumetric heating of carbon samples at solid density. The isochoric melting of carbon was probed by a scattering of x rays from a secondary laser-produced plasma. From the scattering signal, we have deduced the fraction of the material that was melted by the inhomogeneous heating. The results are compared to different theoretical approaches for the equation of state which suggests modifications from standard models. © 2010 The American Physical Society.

Abstract:

The detailed knowledge of fast electron energy transport following interaction with high-intensity, ultra-short laser pulses is a key area for secondary source generation for ELI. We demonstrate polarization spectroscopy at laser intensities up to 1021 Wcm-2. This is significant as it suggests that in situ emission spectroscopy may be used as an effective probe of fast electron velocity distributions in regimes relevant to electron transport in solid targets. Ly-α doublet emission of nickel (Z = 28) and sulphur (Z = 16) is observed to measure the degree of polarization from the Ly-α1 emission. Ly-α2 emission is unpolarized, and as such acts as a calibration source between spectrometers. The measured ratio of the X-ray σ-and π-polarization allows the possibility to infer the velocity distribution function of the fast electron beam. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

Abstract:

X-ray scattering using highly brilliant x-ray free-electron laser (FEL) radiation provides new access to probe free-electron density, temperature and ionization in near-solid density plasmas. First experiments at the soft x-ray FEL FLASH at DESY, Hamburg, show the capabilities of this technique. The ultrashort FEL pulses in particular can probe equilibration phenomena occurring after excitation of the plasma using ultrashort optical laser pumping. We have investigated liquid hydrogen and find that the interaction of very intense soft x-ray FEL radiation alone heats the sample volume. As the plasma establishes, photons from the same pulse undergo scattering, thus probing the transient, warm dense matter state. We find a free-electron density of (2.6 ± 0.2) × 1020 cm-3 and an electron temperature of 14 ± 3.5 eV. In pump-probe experiments, using intense optical laser pulses to generate more extreme states of matter, this interaction of the probe pulse has to be considered in the interpretation of scattering data. In this paper, we present details of the experimental setup at FLASH and the diagnostic methods used to quantitatively analyse the data. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.