The 11th annual meeting of the Oxford Centre for High Energy Density Science (OxCHEDS) took place on 24th - 25th March at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. The two-day event featured a programme of scientific talks covering the spectrum of high-energy-density science.
The meeting was attended by over 60 people, equally split between AWE and Oxford researchers. The programme was split into five sessions:
- Dynamically compressed solids
- Electronic structure and dynamics
- Extreme and exotic physics
- Transport and fusion science
- Modelling and machine-learning techniques
The format presented many opportunities for discussion, reinforcing existing relationships, making new contacts, and thoughts of future collaborative work.
There was an excellent section with Justin Wark giving ‘An overview of thermal diffuse scattering’ followed by three presentations delving deeper in to the field from DPhil researchers Domenic Peake and Tom Stevens, and OxCHEDS coordinator Paddy Heighway. OxCHEDS Research Fellow, Archie Bott, and his DPhil research Thomas Vincent were fresh off an experiment at the Orion Laser Facility, with Archie giving an overview ‘Understanding the unusual properties of weakly collisional plasmas’ and Thomas presenting the early results from their Orion campaign. There were further overview talks by Sam Vinko (‘Exploring ultrafast electron collisional dynamics’) and Peter Norreys (‘Exploration of ICF physics on forthcoming facilities’).
There were also a number of talks from OxCHEDS collaborators from AWE by Andy Comley (‘Towards automating the analysis of velocimetry data for high-repetition-rate, HEDP experiments at EuXFEL’), Nigel Park (‘Size effects in the initiation of plasticity under shock loading’), Warren Garbett (‘Charged particle stopping power experiments’), and Geoff Cox (‘The problem with vaping’).
The meeting and venue were a great success with superb hospitality, and all who attended are looking forward to greater collaboration over the coming year. The next meeting is already pencilled into the calendar for March 2026.