Laboratory astroparticle physics

Abstract:

Short pulse (< 100 fs) tunable X-ray and VUV laser sources, based on the. free electron laser (FEL) concept, will be a watershed for high energy density research in several areas. These new 4(th) generation light sources will have extremely high fields and short wavelength (similar to 0.1 nm) with peak spectral brightness -photons/(s/mrad(2)/mm(2)/0.1% bandwidth- 10(10) greater than 3(rd) generation light sources. We briefly discuss several applications: the creation of warm dense matter (WDM), probing of near solid density plasmas, and laser-plasma spectroscopy of ions in plasmas. The study of dense plasmas has been severely hampered by the fact that laser-based probes that can directly access the matter in this regime have been unavailable and these new 4(th) generation sources will remove these restrictions. Finally, we present the plans for a user-oriented set of facilities that will incorporate high-energy, intense short-pulse, and x-ray lasers at the first x-ray FEL, the LCLS to be opened at SLAC in 2009.

Abstract:

We review a recent experimental campaign to study the interaction physics of petawatt laser pulses incident at relativistic intensities on solid targets. The campaign was performed on the 500 J sub-picosecond petawatt laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. An extensive suite of optical, x-ray, and particle diagnostics was employed to characterise the processes of laser absorption, electron generation and transport, thermal and K-alpha x-ray generation, and proton acceleration.

Abstract:

Supernovae launch spherical shocks into the circumstellar medium (CSM). These shocks may interact with both the intergalactic magnetic field (IGM) and local mass accumulations (possibly with their own local magnetic fields). The latter interaction may trigger star formation. The shocks have high Mach numbers and may be radiative. We have created similar shocks in the laboratory by focusing laser pulses onto the tip of a solid pin surrounded by ambient gas; ablated material from the pin rapidly expands and launches a shock through the surrounding gas. The shock may then be allowed to interact with (a) mass accumulations, (b) magnetic fields, or (c) allowed to expand freely. We will present examples of each type of experiment, but mainly discuss a new phenomena observed first in (c); at the edge of the radiatively heated gas ahead of the shock, a second shock forms. The two expanding shocks are simultaneously visible for a time, until the original shock stalls from running into the heated gas. The second shock remains visible and continues to expand. A minimum condition for the formation of the second shock is that the original shock is super-critical, i.e., the temperature distribution ahead of the original shock has an inflexion point. In a non-radiative control experiment the second shock does not form. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.

Abstract:

A laser-driven supersonic ionization wave propagating through a millimeter-scale plasma of subcritical density up to 2-3 keV electron temperatures was observed. Propagation velocities initially ten times the sound speed were measured by means of time-resolved x-ray imaging diagnostics. The measured ionization wave trajectory is modeled analytically and by a two-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics code. The comparison to the modeling suggests that nonlocal heat transport effects may contribute to the attenuation of the heat-wave propagation. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.