Experimental study of the collision of two laser-driven radiative shocks at the PALS laser
Résumé
Radiative shocks are present in various astrophysical contexts and can be proxy of fundamental accretion processes, for instance X-ray signatures from accretion shocks can be related to the rate of mass accretion onto forming stars. Thus the study of hypersonic shocks (Mach number >> 1) in the laboratory Under controlled conditions is of primary interest in order to study the influence of radiation, and to compare with numerical simulations. In the past decade, several experiments on radiative shocks have been performed on various large-scale laser facilities, demonstrating the formation of shocks in Xenon with velocities ~50 - 150 km/s in background gas pressures ~0.1 - 1 bar (Bouquet et al. 2004, Gonzalez et. al. 2006, Reighard et. al. 2007, Stehlé et al. 2010, Doss et al. 2011, Drake et al. 2011, Dizière et al. 2012, Stehlé et al. 2012, Chaulagain et al. 2015). Many advances have been achieved in understanding the effect of radiation on the different shock components (radiative precursor, shock collapse, wall heating etc.), however, these studies were focused solely on the case of a single radiative shock. We have recently conducted experiments at the PALS laser facility, looking at the collision between two counter streaming radiative shocks. Besides providing a new experimental platform, these experiments aimed at studying how one radiative precursor is influenced by the presence of another. The experiments launched shocks with different shock speeds (~30-55 km/s and 10-25 km/s), at a range of different pressures (~0.1-0.3 bar), and with different gases (Ar, Xe). Optical interferometry allowed us to estimate several physical parameters such as shock speed and electron density in the precursor, whereas the use of time and spatially resolved optical spectroscopy led to a number of spectral signatures. We will present preliminary results together with numerical simulations.