Special Release
LLE Article Featured on the Cover of Physics of Plasmas
May 12, 2022
Co-authors include A. V. Maximov, E. C. Hansen, J. R. Davies, D. H. Barnak, J. L. Peebles, K. M. Woo, P. V. Heuer, A. B. Sefkow, and R. Betti pictured above
The article, “Effect of laser preheat in magnetized liner inertial fusion at OMEGA,” first-authored by LLE Graduate Student and Horton Fellow, Luis Leal, was selected for the cover of the April issue of Physics of Plasmas.
Luis carried out 3-D HYDRA simulations of laser-driven MagLIF implosions with and without a thin Ti coating on the inner surface of the deuterium-filled cylindrical plastic target and with varying amounts of shell material from the cylindrical target (plastic and Ti) mixed into the deuterium fuel. The simulations showed that the impact of the Ti layer on yield was small in the absence of mix and that small amounts of Ti mix would dramatically reduce the yield. Comparisons with experiments using a Ti layer indicate that preheating leads to a significant increase in shell–fuel mix, which would explain the overestimate of the ideal preheat beam energy in simulations without mix. From these results, it is concluded that the principal factor degrading the performance of laser-driven MagLIF with respect to 3-D simulations is mix, with preheat significantly enhancing mix.