Counter-propagating radiative shock experiments on the Orion laser facility

Thomas Clayson , Francisco Suzuki-Vidal , S. V. Lebedev , G. F. Swadling , G. C. Burdiak , S. Patankar , R. A. Smith , J. Foster , J. Skidmore , E. Gumbrell , P. Graham , C. Danson , Chantal Stehlé , Raj Laxmi Singh (1) , Uddhab Chaulagain , Jean Larour (1) , Michaela Kozlová , C. Spindloe

1 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas

The Orion high-power laser facility, at AWE Aldermaston UK, was used to produce hyper-sonic radiative shocks, travelling at ~60km/s, in noble gases, between 0.1 and 1.0 bar. These experiments aimed to study the radiative precursor, a heat and ionization wave preceding the shock front, and dynamics of colliding radiative shocks. X-ray backlighting and optical self-emission streak imaging were used to study the shock front and collision dynamics, while multi-frame and streaked interferometry were used to simultaneously study the radiative precursor. These experiments compared the shock and collision dynamics in different gases (e.g. Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe), while maintaining a constant mass density, to vary the strength of the radiative precursor. Some shocks exhibited features suggesting the formation of hydrodynamic or radiative instabilities. The experimental data is in good agreement with 2-D rad-hydro simulations and provides a new benchmark for codes to be tested against. http://absimage.aps.org/image/DPP16/MWS_DPP16-2016-000820.pdf

Domaines: Physique des plasmas [physics.plasm-ph]

Thomas Clayson, Francisco Suzuki-Vidal, S. V. Lebedev, G. F. Swadling, G. C. Burdiak, et al.. Counter-propagating radiative shock experiments on the Orion laser facility. 58th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Oct 2016, San Jose, California, United States. ⟨hal-02894226⟩