Simulations of the interaction of very intense short pulse lasers with solid density plasmas have indicated that there may be very high magnetic fields and electron temperatures in the vicinity of the focal spot. We investigate the propagation of an incident electromagnetic wave under these conditions, both analytically and by means of a particle code, and show that the evanescence length of the wave field in a highly overdense plasma may be much greater than is usually supposed. This effect could be important in understanding the penetration of energy into the overdense region and the particle heating and acceleration which takes place there.

The problem of heavy-ion beam energy conversion into the plasma self-radiation of the spherical target is considered by using the radiative conductivity approximation. It is shown that there is a single parameter γ which determines the spherical ‘corona’ structure and has the meaning of the ratio: the ion range/the effective heat range. The conversion coefficient increases with the increase in the parameter γ and becomes ∼ 1, when γ ≃ 102. Typical beam and target parameters of modern HIF designs correspond to γ ≃ 10 and conversion coefficients >50%. Thus, at quasistationary stage of the ‘corona’ expansion the target acceleration and implosion regime is basically the radiative one.

Discharge plasma channels have been investigated in recent years at Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung–Darmstadt (GSI) and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, in a number of experiments. A short summary of the experimental work at Berkeley and GSI is given. Different initiation mechanisms for gas discharges of up to 60 kA were studied and compared. In the Berkeley experiments, laser ionization of organic vapors in a buffer gas was used to initiate and direct the discharge while at GSI, laser gas heating and ion-beam-induced gas ionization were tested as initiation mechanisms. These three initiation techniques are compared and the stability of the resulting discharge channels is discussed. A discharge current of 50 kA, a channel diameter well below 1 cm, a pointing stability better than 200 μm, and MHD stability of more than 10 μs have been demonstrated simultaneously in the recent experiments. These parameters are sufficient or close to the requirements of a reactor application depending on the details of the target design. The experimental results show that transport channels work with sufficient stability, reproducibility, and ion optical properties for a wide pressure range of discharge gases and pressures.

A compact nanosecond pulsed X-ray source is described. The X-ray source consists of two important subassemblies: a high-voltage pulse generator and an X-ray diode. The high-voltage pulse generator is designed based on the principle of triple resonance circuit producing a high-voltage pulse across the X-ray diode with amplitude of up to 500 kV. The X-ray diode is a sealed transmission target X-ray tube. Its cathode is comb structure formed from thin tungsten sheets with thickness 50 µm, while its target is made of 100 µm titanium film. The X-ray dose at a distance of 20 cm from the diode is 20 mR per pulse, while the diode voltage is 512 kV. In the case, the full-width at half-maximum of the X-ray pulse is ~5 ns.

Thermal energy transport in laser-irradiated glass microshells coated with polystyrene/metal layers seems to be dominated by hot spots. These are connected with filaments which are enhanced by hydrodynamic instability of the Rayleigh-Taylor type.

A two-dimensional simplified model of an HF chemical laser is introduced. Using an implicit finite difference scheme, the solution of two adjacent parallel streams with diffusion mixing and chemical reaction is generated. A contour of the mixing and reaction boundary is obtained without presupposition. The distribution of the HF(u) concentrations, gas temperature and the optical small signal gain (αu, J) on the flowing plane (X, Y) are presented. Compared with the solution solved directly from a set of Navier–Stokes equations, the results of these two methods agree with each other qualitatively. The influences of the different velocity, temperature (T0) and composition of the two streams on the small signal gain after the nozzle exit are investigated. It is interesting that for larger J with a fixed u, the peaks of αu, J—T0 profiles move towards higher T0. The computing method is simple and only a short computing time is needed.

A self-guided Gaussian laser pulse propagating in a non-uniform plasma channel is unstable to a plasma wave perturbation co-moving with the laser with its group velocity. The plasma wave amplitude has a maximum radial profile along the laser propagation axis. As the plasma wave propagates through a non-uniform plasma channel, the plasma wave perturbation causes focusing in the part of the laser that propagates with the electron density trough and defocusing in the part moving with the crest. This yields an axial gradient in the intensity of the laser and produces a ponderomotive force on the electrons. The ponderomotive force drives the plasma wave, which in turn makes the modulational instability grow. The growth rate of the modulational instability becomes larger with the increase in non-uniformity of a shallow plasma channel. In a deep cavitated plasma channel the growth rate of the modulational instability increases with the laser pulse amplitude.

Two spherically symmetric versions of a self-similar collapse are investigated within the framework of the Zakharov equations, namely, one relative to a vectorial electric field and the other corresponding to a scalar modeling of the Langmuir field. Singular solutions of both of them depend on a linear time contraction rate Ξ(t) = V(t* – t), where t* and V = – Ξ denote, respectively, the collapse time and the constant collapse velocity. We show that under certain conditions, only the scalar model admits self-similar solutions, varying regularly as a function of the control parameter V from the subsonic (V ≪ 1) to the supersonic (V ≫ 1) regime.

In inertial confinement fusion the target implosion non-uniformity is introduced by a driver beams’ illumination non-uniformity, a fuel target alignment error in a fusion reactor, the target fabrication defect, etc. For a steady operation of a fusion power plant the target implosion should be robust against the implosion non-uniformities. In this paper the requirement for the implosion uniformity is first discussed. The implosion uniformity should be less than a few percent. A study on the fuel hotspot dynamics is also presented and shows that the stagnating plasma fluid provides a significant enhancement of vorticity at the final stage of the fuel stagnation. Then non-uniformity mitigation mechanisms of the heavy-ion beam (HIB) illumination are also briefly discussed in heavy ion inertial fusion (HIF). A density valley appears in the energy absorber, and the large-scale density valley also works as a radiation energy confinement layer, which contributes to a radiation energy smoothing. In HIF a wobbling HIB illumination was also introduced to realize a uniform implosion. In the wobbling HIBs illumination, the illumination non-uniformity oscillates in time and space on a HIF target. The oscillating-HIB energy deposition may contribute to the reduction of the HIBs’ illumination non-uniformity by its smoothing effect on the HIB illumination non-uniformity and also by a growth mitigation effect on the Rayleigh–Taylor instability.

Results for the energy spectra of the electrons scattered on a potential in the presence of a bichromatic field of frequencies ω and 2ω are obtained based on 1D numerical integration of the time dependent Schrödinger equation. Both the perturbative and the nonperturbative regimes are investigated for low scattering energies and a laser frequency that is close to that of CO2 lasers. Special attention is paid to the influence of the relative phase between the harmonic and the laser field on the features of the laser-assisted signals.

We use an Eulerian Vlasov code to study the efficient ion acceleration in dense targets by the ponderomotive force of a high-intensity circularly polarized laser beam, normally incident on a dense plasma. The code solves the one-dimensional relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell equations for both electrons and ions. We follow in details the mechanism of formation and evolution of a double-layer structure, where electrons are pushed steadily in the forward direction by the ponderomotive force of the laser beam, trapping an ion population, while an induced space charge electric field pulls ions behind them, forming a double-layer structure supported by the strong ponderomotive pressure of the intense laser beam. We consider the case of a high-density deuterium plasma with n/ncr = 100, where ncr is the critical density. Three cases are studied, by varying the width of the dense target and the intensity of the laser beam (with the normalized vector potential or quiver momentum a0 = 50 and a0 = 100), to follow the physical processes involved in the ion acceleration and the final formation of a neutral plasma jet ejected from the back of the target. We follow the transition from a situation where the laser pulse radiation pressure is acting on the double layer in the target, to a situation where below a given thickness a fraction of the laser energy is transmitted through the target. The absence of noise in the Eulerian Vlasov code allows us to follow accurately the evolution of the phase-space structures of the distribution functions.

Relativistic surface high harmonics, combined with the use of polarization gating, present a promising route towards intense single attosecond pulses. However, they impose stringent requirements on ultra-high laser contrast and are restricted by large intensity losses in real experiments. Here, we numerically demonstrate that by setting an optimal time delay in the polarization gating scheme, the intensity of the generated single attosecond pulses can become approximately 100 times stronger than that with nonoptimal time delay in the coherent synchrotron emission process. When a petawatt-class driving laser irradiates a solid target, an ultra-dense electron nanobunch and a strong space-charge sheath develop, and the accumulated electrostatic energy is only released in half of the laser cycle when this electron nanobunch moves backward. This process results in the emission of intense high harmonics. Our study provides a reliable method for developing bright attosecond extreme ultraviolet pulses.

Starting from the Riemann-Silberstein formulation of classical electrodynamics the Schrödinger equation for the photon energy wave function is discussed. Hereafter, a propagator description of the space-time emission of a polychromatic photon from an atom is presented, paying particular attention to the near-field electrodynamics. When the atom is embedded in a solid-state plasma the photon emission process can be dramatically modified. Limiting the analyses to solid-state plasmas exhibiting translational and rotational symmetry, the near-field atom-photon-plasma interaction is studied paying particular attention to the plasmariton and plasmon excitation processes. It is shown that the transverse and longitudinal parts of the plasma-screened field propagator link in a direct manner to the free-photon propagator and the longitudinal near-field photon propagator. The necessity of keeping both the transverse and longitudinal parts of the plasma screening in a rigorous description of near-field electrodynamics is demonstrated.

An experiment on Al-Cu impedance-match targets, carried out at the Shenguang highpower laser facility, is described. The shock adiabat of Cu in the pressure region 0.4- 0.8 TPa, measured experimentally, is close to the extrapolated results of the data at lower pressure obtained with a high-explosive loading facility and also is in agreement with the data at high pressure measured in the underground nuclear test environment.

We examine the electron acceleration induced by an ultra-relativistic intensity laser–plasma interaction in a two-dimensional plasma channel in the presence of a self-generated transverse magnetic field. We find that the electron dynamics is strongly affected by the laser pulse polarization angle, plasma density, and magnetic field strength. We investigate in detail, the dependencies of the electron acceleration in terms of different parameters and find excellent agreement with non-magnetized plasma in the absence of the magnetic field. The numerical results show that the self-generated magnetic field plays a constructive role in the electron acceleration process. It is shown that electron acceleration is more affected by self-generated magnetic field for the laser radiations with large polarization angles. The numerical results show the maximum enhancement for electron acceleration for a laser radiation with polarization angle θ = π/2.

X-ray spectroscopy is a widely used means of diagnosing densities and temperature within laser-produced plasmas. At X-ray energies above approximately 1 keV, Bragg crystal spectrometers are routinely used to record X-ray spectra. Quantitative measurements of plasma conditions can be obtained with a knowledge of crystal reflectivity and film or detector response. In such data analysis it is always assumed that the crystal response is constant in time. However, we show that under certain adverse experimental conditions the X-ray fluxes incident on the crystal are so high as to significantly transiently modify the reflection characteristics of the crystal. Such degradation need not necessarily be accompanied by a loss of observed spectral solution. The transient (nanosecond-time-scale) change in crystal reflectivity is due to a change from dynamical to more kinematic diffraction caused by an X-ray-induced thermal strain gradient in the surface layer of the crystal. The decay time of this strain is typically several nanoseconds. Calculations of some specific crystal reflectivities and rocking curves under such conditions are presented, and methods of minimizing the effect by appropriate filtering are discussed.

The phase diagram of high density (1023 ˜ 1027/cm3) deuterium is obtained by calculation. The values of specific heat, electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity in the metallic state are estimated over a wide range of temperature (10−2 ˜ 104 eV). The temperature dependences of these properties are shown in figures with the density. When T ≤ Tf (Tf: the Fermi temperature of electrons), the behavior is very similar to those of normal metals. At high temperatures where T ≥ Tf, the behavior is similar to that of completely ionized classical plasma.

This fundamental data for deuterium will help us understand the properties of fuel in inertial-confinement fusion and to solve the fluid equations for efficient compression of fuel pellets.

It is shown that large gainlengths of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) together with collisional effects in plasmas are liable to generate modifications in population inversions and then in observed gain values. In the case of the Ne-like Se24+ ion, one can expect a significant reduction of the J = 0–1 transition gain value at the wavelength of 18.24 nm.

Atomic processes in X-ray laser interaction plasmas are investigated by using a collisional-radiative model. Population inversions on free-bound transitions can be produced by photoionization above a threshold of incident X-ray laser intensity and lead to stimulated free-bound emission (SFBE). Free-bound lasers pumped by intense X-ray lasers are proposed and their feasibility is investigated simply considering X-ray laser interaction plasmas.

A physical-mathematical model for the development of the boundary instability of a spherical incompressible-liquid shell, with due regard for the ablation effect, is considered.