Oxford Centre for High Energy Density Science (OxCHEDS)

Abstract:

We present results from numerical simulations conducted to investigate a potential method for realizing the required fusion fuel heating in the fast ignition scheme to achieving inertial confinement fusion. A comparison will be made between collisionless and collisional particle-in-cell simulations of the relaxation of a non-thermal electron beam through the two-stream instability. The results presented demonstrate energy transfer to the plasma ion population from the laser-driven electron beam via the nonlinear wave-wave interaction associated with the two-stream instability. Evidence will also be provided for the effects of preferential damping of competing instabilities such as the Weibel mode found to be detrimental to the ion heating process. © Cambridge University Press 2013.

Abstract:

The macroscopic characteristics of a material are determined by its elementary excitations, which dictate the response of the system to external stimuli. The spectrum of excitations is related to fluctuations in the density-density correlations and is typically measured through frequency-domain neutron or X-ray scattering. Time-domain measurements of these correlations could yield a more direct way to investigate the excitations of solids and their couplings both near to and far from equilibrium. Here we show that we can access large portions of the phonon dispersion of germanium by measuring the diffuse scattering from femtosecond X-ray free-electron laser pulses. A femtosecond optical laser pulse slightly quenches the vibrational frequencies, producing pairs of high-wavevector phonons with opposite momenta. These phonons manifest themselves as time-dependent coherences in the displacement correlations probed by the X-ray scattering. As the coherences are preferentially created in regions of strong electron-phonon coupling, the time-resolved approach is a natural spectroscopic tool for probing low-energy collective excitations in solids, and their microscopic interactions.

Abstract:

Here, we report orbital-free density-functional theory (OF DFT) molecular dynamics simulations of the dynamic ion structure factor of warm solid density aluminum at T=0.5 eV and T=5 eV. We validate the OF DFT method in the warm dense matter regime through comparison of the static and thermodynamic properties with the more complete Kohn-Sham DFT. This extension of OF DFT to dynamic properties indicates that previously used models based on classical molecular dynamics may be inadequate to capture fully the low frequency dynamics of the response function. © 2013 American Physical Society.