Prof. Gail Glendinning
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories

3:30 PM, February 1, 2006, Rm 128

Experiments at Extreme States - X-Games Physics on the National Ignition Facility

The National Ignition Facility is a 1.8 Megajoule laser currently under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. When complete, it will be used to research fundamental questions about matter in extreme states. In 2003, the National Research Council of the NAS published a report titled "Frontiers in High Energy Density Physics: The X-Games of Contemporary Science". Their conclusion was that experimental facilities such as the NIF, Sandia's Z machine, and SLAC (among others) are now capable of reaching regimes of high energy density allowing unprecedented insight into the behavior of matter under extreme conditions. We describe in this presentation experiments planned for the NIF addressing some of the questions posed in this report:

  • How does matter behave under conditions of extreme temperature, pressure, density and electromagnetic fields?
  • Can the transition to turbulence, and the turbulent state, in high energy density systems be understood experimentally and theoretically?
  • Will measurements of the equation of state and opacity of materials at high temperatures and pressures change models of stellar and planetary structure?

Experiments are beginning on the NIF, using the first four of its eventual 192 beams. We will describe results from an experiment beginning to address the question understanding the transition to turbulence in a high energy density system.

Coffee and cookies before the presentation at 3:20 pm, and refreshments after the presentation will both be served in Room 128.