Experimental study of the hydrodynamic trajectory of an x-ray-heated gold plasma

• Published in: Physics of plasmas 2010-06, Vol.17 (6)
• Main Authors: Yang, Jiamin, Meng, Guangwei, Zhu, Tuo, Zhang, Jiyan, Li, Jinhong, He, Xiaoan, Yi, Rongqing, Xu, Yan, Hu, Zhiming, Ding, Yaonan, Liu, Shenye, Ding, Yongkun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION; ELEMENTS; GOLD; HEATING; IONIZING RADIATIONS; METALS; ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS; PLASMA; PLASMA DIAGNOSTICS; PLASMA HEATING; PLASMA SIMULATION; RADIATION TRANSPORT; RADIATIONS; SIMULATION; TRAJECTORIES; TRANSITION ELEMENTS; TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS; X RADIATION
• ISSN: 1070-664X; 1089-7674
• DOI: 10.1063/1.3443127

Hydrodynamic processes of radiation-ablated high-Z plasmas have great influence on the x-ray radiation transport both in a high-Z tube with low-Z foam filling and in a low-Z filling indirect drive cavity. Using the intense x-ray radiation to heat a low-Z foam-tamped high-Z gold plate from a half cavity, the hydrodynamic moving process of the x-ray-ablated gold plasma has been studied by an imaging method with Ti   He- α line emission as the backlighter source. The hydrodynamic trajectory of the x-ray-heated gold plasma was obtained and the average trajectory velocity of ( 36.5 ± 1.2 )   km / s was derived. The experimental trajectory was compared with the simulations using the one-dimensional (1D) RDMG [P. Gu et al. , Sci. China, Ser. G 48, 345 (2005)] and two-dimensional (2D) LARED-R [K. Lan et al. , Laser Part. Beams 23, 275 (2005)] codes separately. It is shown that the 2D LARED-R code simulated the measured plasma trajectory much better than the 1D RDMG code due to the fact that the lateral x-ray radiation loss was taken into account in the 2D LARED-R but not in the 1D RDMG simulations.