A Fokker-Planck code is developed based upon Epperlein's scheme to investigate laser-produced plasmas in relevance to inertial confinement fusion. The equations are integrated implicitly by time-splitting method. Three test problems are simulated to show the versatility of the code. The results are in good agreement with the existing simulations.
Non-local electron transport in laser-produced plasmas under inertial confinement fusion (ICF) conditions is studied based on Fokker-Planck (FP) and hydrodynamic simulations. A comparison between the classical Spitzer-Harm (SH) transport model and non-local transport models has been made. The result shows that among those non-local models the Epperlein and Short (ES) model of heat flux is in reasonable agreement with the FP simulation in overdense region. However, the non-local models are invalid in the hot underdense plasmas. Hydrodynamic simulation is performed with the flux limiting model and the non-local model, separately. The simulation results show that in the underdense region of the laser-produced plasmas the temperature given by the flux limiting model is significantly higher than that given with the non-local model.
In order to produce millimeter-scale plasmas for the research of laser-plasma interactions (LPIs), gasbag target is designed and tested on Shenguang-III prototype laser facility. The x-ray pinhole images show that millimeter-scale plasmas are produced with the gasbag. The electron temperature inferred from the stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) spectrum is about 1.6 keV. The SRS spectrum also indicates that the electron density has a fiat region within the duration of 200 ps. The obvious differences between the results of the gasbag and that of the void half hohlraum show the feasibility of the gasbag target in creating millimeter-scale plasmas. The LPIs in these millimeter-scale plasmas may partially mimic those in the ignition condition because the duration of the existence of a flat plasma density is much larger than the growth time of the two main instabilities, i.e., SRS and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). So we make the conclusion that the gasbag target can be used to research the large-scale LPIs.