34 research outputs found
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Isentropic Compression of LX-04 on the Z Accelerator
Three sets of LX-04 samples of 0.18 and 0.49 mm nominal thicknesses were all dynamically loaded by Sandia's Z-accelerator with a ramp compression wave with a 200 ns rise time and about 150 kb peak stress. The LX-04/lithium fluoride samples interface velocities were measured using VISAR's. Comparisons of experimental and computational results will be given. Compression and release isentropes both show some reaction and kinetic behavior of the LX-04. Experiments were also performed on fine-grained TATB. Future experiments on single crystals of HMX that are designed to measure the phase transition at high pressures will be discussed
Measurement of the equation of state of solid-density copper heated with laser-accelerated protons
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Using Short Pulse Lasers to Address Frontiers in High Pressure Physics
Having laser intensities of 10{sup 21} W/cm{sup 2} yield electrical field strengths of 10{sup 12} V/cm which is comparable to the field strength at the K-shell of neon. Instant field ionization becomes part of the laser-matter interaction allowing to transfer most of the photons momenta directly onto the ions by driving an electrostatic shock through the target equivalent to pressures of several 100 Gbar. Utilization of these high-pressure conditions in form of equation of state measurements, however, strongly depends on the contrast of the femtosecond laser pulse. Currently, the Livermore USP and JanUSP lasers reach contrast values up to 10{sup 8}. This is sufficient to explore near-isochorically heated materials at moderate intensities (10{sup 13}-10{sup 15} W/cm{sup 2}) attaining pressures around 100 Mbar
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Towards laboratory-produced relativistic electron-positron pair-plasmas
Relativistic pair-plasmas and jets are believed to exist in many astrophysical objects and are often invoked to explain energetic phenomena related to Gamma Ray Bursts and Black Holes. On earth, positrons from radioactive isotopes or accelerators are used extensively at low energies (sub-MeV) in areas related to surface science positron emission tomography and basic antimatter science. Experimental platforms capable of producing the high-temperature pair-plasma and high-flux jets required to simulate astrophysical positron conditions have so far been absent. In the last few years, we performed extensive experiments generating positrons with intense lasers where we found that relativistic electron and positron jets are produced by irradiating a solid gold target with an intense picosecond laser pulse. The positron temperatures in directions parallel and transverse to the beam both exceeded 0.5 MeV, and the density of electrons and positrons in these jets are of order 10{sup 16} cm{sup -3} and 10{sup 13} cm{sup -3}, respectively. With the advent of high-energy ultra-short laser pulses, we expect that a charge-neutral, relativistic pair-plasma is achievable, a novel regime of laboratory-produced hot dense matter. This talk will present some details of the laser-produced pair-plasma experiments