Matter and Radiation at Extremes, 2018, 3 (3): 110, Published Online: Oct. 2, 2018
Macroscopic laser-plasma interaction under strong non-local transport conditions for coupled matter and radiation
Inertial confinement fusion Inertial confinement fusion Lasereplasma interaction Lasereplasma interaction Radiation hydrodynamics Radiation hydrodynamics Transport theory Transport theory
Abstract
Reliable simulations of laseretarget interaction on the macroscopic scale are burdened by the fact that the energy transport is very often nonlocal. This means that the mean-free-path of the transported species is larger than the local gradient scale lengths and transport can be no longer considered diffusive. Kinetic simulations are not a feasible option due to tremendous computational demands, limited validity of the collisional operators and inaccurate treatment of thermal radiation. This is the point where hydrodynamic codes with non-local radiation and electron heat transport based on first principles emerge. The simulation code PETE (Plasma Euler and Transport Equations) combines both of them with a laser absorption method based on the Helmholtz equation and a radiation diffusion scheme presented in this article. In the case of modelling ablation processes it can be observed that both, thermal and radiative, transport processes are strongly non-local for laser intensities of 1013 W=cm2 and above. In this paper simulations for various laser intensities and different ablator materials are presented, where the non-local and diffusive treatments of radiation transport are compared. Significant discrepancies are observed, supporting importance of non-local transport for inertial confinement fusion related studies as well as for pre-pulse generated plasma in ultra-high intensity laseretarget interaction.The authors acknowledge support from the project High Field Initiative (HiFI) (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_003/0000449) and ELI Tools for Advanced Simulation (ELITAS) (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001793), both from European Regional Development Fund, the Czech Science Foundation project 18-20962S and Czech Technical University grant SGS16/247/OHK4/3T/14. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 633053 (EUROfusion project CfP-AWP17-IFE-CEA-01).
J. Nikl, M. Holec, M. Zeman, M. Kucharík, J. Limpouch, S. Weber. Macroscopic laser-plasma interaction under strong non-local transport conditions for coupled matter and radiation[J]. Matter and Radiation at Extremes, 2018, 3(3): 110.