Observation of reduced beam deflection using smoothed beams in gas-filled hohlraum symmetry experiments at Nova

Journal Article · Mon May 01 04:00:00 UTC 2000 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.873982· OSTI ID:20216039

Delamater, N D ^[1]; Lindman, E L ^[1]; Magelssen, G R ^[1]; Failor, B H ^[1]; Murphy, T J ^[1]; Hauer, A A ^[1]; Gobby, P ^[1]; Moore, J B ^[1]; Gomez, V ^[1]; Gifford, K ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)

Execution and modeling of drive symmetry experiments in gas-filled hohlraums have been pursued to provide both a better understanding of radiation symmetry in such hohlraums and to verify the accuracy of the design tools which are used to predict target performance for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) [J. Lindl, Phys. Plasmas 2, 3933 (1995)]. In this paper, the results of a series of drive symmetry experiments using gas-filled hohlraums at the Nova laser facility [C. Bibeau et al., Appl. Opt. 31, 5799 (1992)] at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are presented. A very important element of these experiments was the use of kineform phase plates (KPP) to smooth the Nova beams. The effect of smoothing the ten Nova beams with KPP phase plates is to remove most of the beam bending which had been observed previously, leaving a residual bending of only 1.5 degree sign , equivalent to a 35 {mu}m pointing offset at the hohlraum wall. The results show that the symmetry variation with pointing of implosions in gas-filled hohlraums is consistent with time integrated modeling. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics.

• OSTI ID: 20216039
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 7; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
LASER FUSION REACTORS
NOVA FACILITY
PLASMA SIMULATION
THEORETICAL DATA