C. Blancard

Experimental investigation of opacity models for stellar interior, inertial fusion, and high energy density plasmas

Theoretical opacities are required for calculating energy transport in plasmas. In particular, understanding stellar interiors, inertial fusion, and Z pinches depends on the opacities of mid-atomic-number elements over a wide range of temperatures. The 150–300 eV temperature range is particularly interesting. The opacity models are complex and experimental validation is crucial. For example, solar models presently disagree with helioseismology and one possible explanation is inadequate theoretical opacities. Testing these opacities requires well-characterized plasmas at temperatures high enough to produce the ion charge states that exist in the sun. Typical opacity experiments heat a sample using x rays and measure the spectrally resolved transmission with a backlight. The difficulty grows as the temperature increases because the heating x-ray source must supply more energy and the backlight must be bright enough to overwhelm the plasma self-emission. These problems can be overcome with the new generation...

Experimental Investigation of Iron Plasma Opacity Models

Recent experiments extended iron opacity model tests to temperatures above 150 eV for the first time. The experiments use the Z Facility to volumetrically heat a CH‐tamped Fe/Mg plasma using x‐rays. The frequency dependent sample transmission is measured by viewing a backlight through the sample. The plasma conditions are inferred from the Mg K‐shell absorption. The strategy for this research is to examine the underlying physics within Fe opacity models by comparisons with the measured transmission. Physics topics of interest include charge state distribution, energy level structure, and line broadening. In this talk we discuss methods to exploit the data and advance understanding for these topics. In addition, we review new experiments under way to further improve the data and to achieve higher energy density conditions.