Radiation Transport in Strongly Coupled High-Energy-Density Plasmas

Heath LeFevre被授予美国国家科学基金会数学和物理科学提升博士后研究奖学金，在密歇根大学安娜堡分校开展研究和教育项目。LeFevre将在罗切斯特大学的Omega和Omega EP激光设备上研究高能密度（HED）等离子体。该项目旨在了解和测量强电磁辐射与高能等离子体之间的耦合，高能等离子体是一种粒子密度和温度特别高的等离子体。强耦合对等离子体辐射发射和吸收的影响还没有得到很好的研究，这对白矮星和Ia型超新星以及惯性约束聚变等离子体的物理学具有重要意义。除了这项研究，LeFevre还将开展外展、招募和指导工作，旨在增加研究等离子体物理学的学生的多样性。本研究探索了与惯性约束聚变、白矮星和Ia型超新星有关的强耦合、辐射通量主导的等离子体。这是一种难以建模的物理机制，因此在罗彻斯特大学的高能激光设备上获得的实验结果对天体物理学和HED科学研究具有重要意义。将这些实验结果与现有的辐射流体动力学、原子动力学和辐射输运代码进行比较，将量化这些等离子体中辐射耦合的影响。由于使用了多种设备和实验条件，本研究将能够消除HED物理模型中常见的不确定性和误差来源。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Heath LeFevre is awarded an NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to conduct a program of research and education at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. LeFevre will study High-Energy Density (HED) plasmas at the Omega and Omega EP laser facilities at the University of Rochester. The project aims to understand and measure coupling between intense electromagnetic radiation and an HED plasma, a plasma with particularly high particle density and temperature. The regime where effects of strong coupling on emission and absorption of radiation in HED plasmas is not well studied and is important to the physics of white dwarf stars and type Ia supernova, as well as for inertial confinement fusion plasmas. Along with the research, LeFevre will conduct outreach, recruiting, and mentoring efforts aimed at increasing the diversity of students studying plasma physics. This study explores strongly coupled, radiation flux dominated plasmas, which are relevant to inertial confinement fusion, white dwarf stars, and type Ia supernova. This is a physics regime that is difficult to model and therefore the experimental results to be obtained at the University of Rochester’s high energy laser facilities are of fundamental interest to astrophysics and HED science research. Comparing results of these experiments with available radiation hydrodynamics, atomic kinetics, and radiation transport codes will quantify the effects of radiation coupling in these plasmas. This study will be able to eliminate common sources of uncertainty and error in HED physics models due to its use of multiple facilities and experimental conditions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.