Radiation Transport in Strongly Coupled High-Energy-Density Plasmas

Heath LeFevre被授予NSF数学和物理科学提升博士后研究奖学金，以在密歇根大学安娜堡分校开展研究和教育项目。勒费夫尔将在罗切斯特大学的欧米茄和欧米茄EP激光设施中研究高能密度(HED)等离子体。该项目旨在了解和测量强电磁辐射与HED等离子体之间的耦合，HED等离子体是一种具有特别高粒子密度和温度的等离子体。强耦合对HED等离子体辐射发射和吸收的影响尚未得到很好的研究，这对白矮星和Ia型超新星的物理以及惯性约束聚变等离子体都是重要的。除了这项研究，LeFevre还将进行外展、招聘和指导工作，旨在增加学习等离子体物理的学生的多样性。这项研究探索了强耦合、辐射通量主导的等离子体，它们与惯性约束聚变、白矮星和Ia型超新星有关。这是一个很难模拟的物理体系，因此，在罗切斯特大学的高能激光设施中获得的实验结果对天体物理学和HED科学研究具有根本意义。将这些实验的结果与现有的辐射流体力学、原子动力学和辐射输运程序进行比较，将量化这些等离子体中辐射耦合的影响。这项研究将能够消除由于使用多个设施和实验条件而导致的HED物理模型中常见的不确定性和误差来源。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.