Andrea L. Kritcher's research while affiliated with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other places

... The rigorous theoretical description of warm dense matter (WDM)-an extreme state that naturally occurs in astrophysical objects such as giant planet interiors [1] and white dwarfs [2], and which is relevant to cutting-edge technological applications such as inertial fusion energy [3][4][5]-constitutes one of the most pressing challenges in a variety of fields [6][7][8][9] including plasma physics, material science, and quantum chemistry. In the WDM regime, the Wigner-Seitz radius r s = d/a B , the degeneracy temperature Θ = k B T /E F (where E F is the Fermi energy [10]), and the coupling parameter Γ = W /K (where W and K are the interaction and kinetic energy, respectively) are all of the order of unity [11], implying a complex interplay of effects such as Coulomb coupling, quantum degeneracy and delocalization, strong thermal excitations, and partial ionization. ...

... Moreover, absolute knowledge of the ITCF will potentially open the way toward experimental measurements of the exchange-correlation kernel [cf. Eq. (12)] of real materials, which will be of high value for the benchmarking and further development of ab initio density functional theory (DFT) simulations [30][31][32][33] . Other important parameters that are encoded into F ee (q, τ ) , but cannot be obtained from its symmetry alone, include the number density n and the ionization degree Z, which are of key importance for equation-of-state tables 23,24 . ...

... Thus, for the same fusion plasma conditions, G fuel is fixed, but G cap and G target will be design dependent and, therefore, only qualitative metrics of ignition. In fact, a modest to weak correlation between capsule or target absorbed energy and fusion yield is exhibited in NIF LID DT implosion data [30]. Table I shows all three gain metrics for a variety of NIF DT implosions. ...

... Diese bieten sogar einen dreifachen Zugang zu deren Bestimmung. Erstens kann die Dichte des geschockten Mediums aus dem Transmissionsbild bestimmt werden, wie beispielsweise in Marshall et al. (2009), Le Pape et al. (2010, Antonelli et al. (2017), Swift et al. (2021) gezeigt. Dafür ist es essenziell, die aus dem propagationsbasierten Phasenkontrast erhaltenen Signaturen im Transmissionsbild vom eigentlichen Transmissionssignal bei der Interpretation der Dichtewerte zu trennen beziehungsweise diese im Vorfeld herauszukorrigieren, beispielsweise durch Rückpropagation (Wolf, o.D.). ...

... We applied these new models to 1D hydrodynamic simulations of a polar direct drive fusion experiment based on previous studies. 18,81 For this study, we kept the capsule diameter constant at 3000 µm and set the gas pressure to 8 atm of D 2 at room temperature. We used a flux limiter=0.0398 ...

... By probing the electronic dynamic structure factor S ee (q, E ), where q and E are the change in the momentum and energy of the scattered photon, it is capable of giving detailed insights into the microphysics of the probed sample [2][3][4]. This capability is particularly important for experiments with matter under extreme densities, temperatures, and pressures [2,5,6], as they occur, e.g., in astrophysical objects [7][8][9], inertial confinement fusion applications [10,11], and for material science and materials discovery [12][13][14]. Here, the combination of the extreme conditions with the highly transient nature of the generated extreme states in the laboratory [15] renders the unambiguous diagnosis of plasma conditions challenging. ...

... Laser plasma instabilities (LPIs), [1][2][3] in the form, for example, of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), or two-plasmon decay (TPD), are fundamental limiters of fusion performance for all approaches to laser-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF), 4-6 because they may cause significant laser energy loss, generate undesirable hot electrons, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] and seriously influence the drive symmetry on the target. Thus, mitigation of LPI effects is crucial for achieving predictable and reproducible fusion at high gain in the progress toward the practical realization of inertial fusion energy. ...

... Magnetization during laser plasma interactions has attracted significant attention, as it impacts both the laser pulse dynamics and the substrate i.e. the background plasma properties. Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) has triggered interest in the study of magnetized plasma-laser interaction [56,57]. Experimental observations have confirmed the generation of intense magnetic fields (up to hundreds of MG) [14,[58][59][60] during LPI. ...

... This metric describes the resultant behavior of ignition but cannot tell when ignition would occur prior to ignition. An improved form, GLC H , was derived by Hurricane et al. [32,[43][44][45] from thermodynamics by defining ignition (or self-heating) as a point of breaking adiabacity of the hot spot. This metric takes into account some 3D effects. ...

... A wider array of integrated ICF experiments is now considered. This scan includes three experiments from the Hybrid E campaign, 10 one from the BigFoot campaign, 52,53 one subscale high-density-carbon (HDC) 54,55 and two subscale plastic ablator experiments. 56 A summary of the differences between each shot is given in Table I. ...