Three-dimensional modeling of laser-plasma interaction: Benchmarking our predictive modeling tools versus experiments
- L-399, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, California 94551 (United States)
New experimental capabilities [Froula et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 085001 (2007)] have been developed to study laser-plasma interaction (LPI) in ignition-relevant condition at the Omega laser facility (LLE/Rochester). By shooting an interaction beam along the axis of a gas-filled hohlraum heated by up to 17 kJ of heater beam energy, a millimeter-scale underdense uniform plasma at electron temperatures above 3 keV was created. Extensive Thomson scattering measurements allowed to benchmark hydrodynamic simulations performed with HYDRA [Meezan et al., Phys. Plasmas 14, 056304 (2007)]. As a result of this effort, these simulations can be used with much confidence as input parameters for the LPI simulation code PF3D [Berger et al., Phys. Plasmas 5, 4337 (1998)]. In this paper, it is shown that by using accurate hydrodynamic profiles and full three-dimensional simulations including a realistic modeling of the laser intensity pattern generated by various smoothing options, whole beam three-dimensional linear kinetic modeling of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) reproduces quantitatively the experimental measurements (SBS thresholds, reflectivity values, and the absence of measurable stimulated Raman scattering). This good agreement was made possible by the recent increase in computing power routinely available for such simulations. These simulations accurately predicted the strong reduction of SBS measured when polarization smoothing is used.
- OSTI ID:
- 21120390
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 15, Issue 5; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2844361; (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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