New regimes of HED science on the National Ignition Facility
The Discovery Science program at NIF allows basic science to be pursued on NIF. A number of examples will be given in this presentation. Equations of state at extreme pressures relevant to planetary and exoplanet interiors are being measured (Döppner 2023, Gorman 2022, Polsin 2022). Studies of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities at high Reynolds number, relevant to supernova explosions, are being studied (Nagel 2017, Sauppe 2020). Experiments relevant to turbulent star formation dynamics are underway on NIF (Davidovits 2022, Dhawalikar 2022). Experiments to study magnetic reconnection at HED conditions have been done. [Valenzuela 2024] High velocity, low density interpenetrating plasmas that generate collisionless astrophysical shocks, magnetic fields, and that accelerate particles relevant to cosmic ray sources are also being studied (Fiuza 2020). And relativistically hot plasmas are being generated and studied on the NIF ARC laser, with possible relevance to gamma burst dynamics (Williams 2021). And the first plasma-electron nuclear screening experiment is under development on NIF (Casey 2023).
Bio: Bruce Remington received his B.S. degree from Northern Michigan University in 1975 and his Ph.D. in experimental heavy-ion nuclear physics from Michigan State University in 1986. He held a two-year postdoctoral appointment in the Physics Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory working on nuclear modeling and simulations of pre-equilibrium reactions, then joined Laser Program (now the National Ignition Facility Directorate) at LLNL in 1988. He has been a staff physicist in the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program and/or High Energy Density Physics Program since 1988. He was a group leader from 1996-2014, and NIF Discovery Science (“basic science”) Program Leader, 2014-present. He works on laser driven, high energy density hydrodynamic instabilities and mixing in in a variety of settings, HED laboratory astrophysics, and solid-state material dynamics at high pressures and strain rates (HED materials science). He is author/coauthor on over 450 publications in the areas of nuclear physics, plasma physics, HED materials science, hydrodynamics, and laboratory astrophysics. He is a recipient of the APS-DPP. Excellence in Plasma Physics award (now known as the Dawson award) for his work on ablation-front Rayleigh-Taylor (fluid) instability, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He received the Edward Teller Medal in 2011 for “pioneering research and leadership in inertial fusion sciences and applications”, and he became a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at LLNL in 2012. He is the recipient of the 2023 Duvall prize in shock physics which recognizes outstanding contributions to understanding condensed matter and non-linear physics through shock compression. Bruce is currently Program Leader for Discovery Science on NIF, which is the program that allows outside academics (and inside scientists, as well) to pursue basic science research using the NIF laser.